My Cultural Life - Cheese Creatures versus Super Adrenaline Monkeys

What's Up?

When I worked at the Youth Offending Team back in the Noughties, I worked with a lot of different young people who had broken the law in one way or another. I had a policy, I never looked at a young person's file until I'd met them first. I didn't want any prejudices to cloud my judgement, I wanted to make an opinion of that person before I knew what they'd done wrong.

This was how I met *John. I visited him in the accommodation the YOT had found him, miles from his home town. He was a nice lad, coming up to 18, polite, well-spoken and not really the kind of kid you'd imagine who would get into trouble. John was on the sex offenders register. At 17 he'd slept with his 14 year old stepsister and within a week of that happening, she'd reported him to the police and the law took over. John was sentenced to a two year order and placed on the register for 10 years.

When you look at these facts, you'd struggle to feel any sympathy for him. He wasn't a special needs young person; he'd got eight GCSEs and several of his teachers actually appeared in court to give character references. John was the perfect 'client'. He did everything that was expected of him, kept a low profile and, to my knowledge, never got in trouble again. By the time he was in his early 20s he'd started his own company and I'd often see his van around Wellingborough and Kettering. He ended up with half a dozen employees and if you didn't know about his past you would have thought he was just a young guy who made something of himself...

After John's conviction, his stepsister made allegations against two other men and we discovered that she was something of a 'bad person'. She made an allegation of rape against a neighbour when she was 16 and her 'vulnerable' history began to unravel. When she was 15, social services took her out of the family home because she was classed as a danger to her stepfather and her younger brothers. The further allegations she made were dismissed and John's conviction unfortunately wasn't quashed because he had admitted to having had sex with her. He said to me in one of the few occasions he actually talked about his step sister that he thought they had loved each other and that they would be together forever.

John's life was put back on a proper course. As his own boss, he has never had to disclose his offence and he would have come off the register almost a decade ago. The thing is, over the last few years sex offenders have been rightly vilified, but as John's story attests, not all sex offenders are evil people; some make the wrong decisions, some are coerced into doing something and while I personally believe paedophiles and violent rapists should be castrated, the general public often don't know the story behind the offence. Therefore, as we've seen in recent days, the press and a large part of public opinion seems to want sex offenders to be castigated for ever. Murderers are rehabilitated, but sex offenders (and arsonists) are tarred for life.

I have believed, since working with young offenders, that many of them should never have gone near the criminal justice system. I worked with kids who were convicted of what we called 'survival crimes'. Young, homeless kids, who would steal food from supermarkets (or even supermarket bins) and would end up with a label attached to them that might never go away. I firmly believe that if John had offended in the last few years and his 'crimes' had somehow become public he would never have been able to have achieved what he did. I firmly believe that if people in parts of Northants knew that the bloke who fixed their plumbing had been a convicted sex offender the least they would do is not employ him; the worst is almost unthinkable. 

The way the press stirs up things and social media promotes mob rule, what do we do, as a race, when circumstances are unknown? Do we turn our backs on certain offenders and leave them alone, alienated and without any support, because we're worried that we might get labelled as 'paedo sympathisers' or 'woke lefties who don't think about the children'? There are often two sides to every story, but in 2026 people seem quick to ignore this.

Ask yourself this: How would you look at John and how do you think the mob would look at him if all they knew was he'd had sex with a 14 year old?

* John was not the young man's name and he wasn't a plumber. He was one of the least offensive young people I ever worked with.
On the flip side of this, there was a 16-year-old child from a rural village in Northants, who stole a car while drunk, lost control of it and drove it through a garden and into the front of a house, destroying many things. His victim was a pensioner who had recently lost his wife; the car destroyed many of his cherished memories and because this irresponsible twat was a first time offender and came from a well off family, the magistrate sentenced him to a 3 month referral order (the lowest order that can be issued) and one that doesn't go on your permanent record...

Flash Barry

I'm sorry, but The Flash is a bloody excellent movie and I don't care who disagrees with me. In the future, when people can get past Ezra Miller being a dick, they will look at Andy Muschietti's movie and nod with appreciation - it is a fantastic comic book film and one that sticks very closely to how and where the original Flash comic book went and the impact that Barry Allen had on the DC Universe. I have a soft spot for Barry, even though I can probably count the number of Flash comics I've read on one hand. I never really liked the character until the late 1980s when Marv Wolfman and George Perez (both men I have had the pleasure of meeting and knowing, briefly) created a comic book called Crisis on infinite Earths, where Barry died in one of the most tragic, heroic and pointless deaths that has ever befallen a superhero.

This film's premise is simple, Barry wants to travel back in time, change the past, save the life of his mother and prevent his dad from being framed for her murder. This is the part of the film that I think many struggle with - how and why did Barry's mother actually die, other than being stabbed. There was never a real murderer suggested, it's like she stabbed herself just as her husband walked through the door. That aside, Bruce Wayne (1) - Ben Affleck - warns Barry that changing the past will have countless effects on the now present, the butterfly effect will come into play. But Barry ignores this sage advice and goes back in time, and prevents certain things from happening and effectively creates a massive paradox loop...

Barry finds himself in a new reality, having created a multiverse, and his mother is alive, but he's only 18 and really stupid and immature, This is also a reality where General Zod, from Man of Steel tries to terraform the earth and make it into a new Krypton, but there's no Superman. So Barry and his younger self try to track down the Justice League of this reality, which is essentially Bruce Wayne (2) Michael Keaton, reprising the role he last played over 30 years ago. With the help of an alternate Supergirl, the four of them try to stop Zod and his army. At the conclusion of this, Barry is left with one choice and not one he wants to make. It ends up with him meeting Bruce Wayne (3), who is still his friend, but is now the George Clooney version and that's the last of the spoilers, because one day you will watch this film and realise it's much better than people think. Ezra Miller is superb as the Barrys and while some of the special effects are as dodgy as fuck, the majority of them though, in the action sequences, are superb - it's during the circle of endless possibilities where they struggle. Anyhow, I rate this film highly, which is why I give it an 8/10.

Hit and Run

Guy Ritchie's 2021 action thriller Wrath of Man is slightly off-kilter. It's told in chunks, each overlapping the other, but with a distinct timeline. Jaysun Stayfum plays some bloke who takes a job with a security firm and almost immediately makes himself a bit of a hero by thwarting a heist in clinical fashion. But this isn't the opening sequence, that is a heist that does go well for the people committing it, but there are some deaths. What we have here is a story told from differing perspectives, with Stayfum actually playing a Londoner - but just who is he? It's one of those movies where whatever I say is going to act as some kind of spoiler, so what I will say is it's not what you would expect from your usual one-man-army feature and when Stayfum plays a Londoner, he seems to be able to become an actor again. It's not brilliant, but it has enough twists and turns in it to make it a cut above the average. 6.5/10

IMDB I Love You

I have avoided some dreadful movies thanks to IMDB. However, I have also watched some stinkers that IMDB's reviewers have rated highly. I have never seen anything with as low a rating as Melania. Well done IMDB and your reviewers. Take a bow. 

Trailer Tra...

There wasn't an awful lot that floated my boat from the Superb Owl trailer bonanza. Spielberg's Disclosure Day is bound to be good, his alien films usually are (but this looks a bit... I dunno... done before). There was some extra scenes added to the Supergirl teaser and this now feels like a Guardians of the Galaxy film with a girl in the lead and no Guardians. Ryan Gosling's comedy sci-fi Project Hail Mary looks like it might be fun, but Gosling is to comedy what I am to being a blonde Adonis and The Adventures of Cliff Booth is the only thing I'm looking forward to, because we both loved Once Upon a Time in Hollywood despite it being a Tarantino movie. The others? Nah, not for me.

Utter Bilge

Our second Guy Ritchie film of the week was an absolute load of confusing shite. It was poorly made, obviously filmed in London, with plenty of English actors, despite supposedly being somewhere in the USA and Jason Statham had hair and a beard - which was a little disconcerting. The film, Revolver, didn't get a hugely positive review when it came out and I can see why. It involved a gambler, some dodgy geezas (don't they all?) and other elements which might spoil it for you should you be fucking stupid enough to watch it. We both struggled to follow it in places; there was lots of strange sequences, some involving animation, others having the same scene played out in different ways. The acting was abysmal and it ended extremely abruptly, which I'm not complaining about as it should have ended abruptly about two hours earlier (which would have been about two minutes before it started). Utter shite. 2/10

The Big Bang Wassname

I think the Adam Driver movie 65 is much maligned. It has a 5.4 rating on IMDB (which I wasn't aware of until after we watched it) and while this is faintly ridiculous movie with a silly premise and felt a little like watching a man wander into death trap after death trap without a second of self-awareness. It was also a bit of fun. I mean, it had a lot of dinosaurs in it, and conveniently it had some bad boys, like the T Rex and as we all know from those dreadful Jurassic Park sequels, no one dislikes a big dinosaur...

The thing is, this isn't a bad idea. Humanoid alien from another galaxy gets knocked off course and crash lands on primitive earth, a few days before the big asteroid fucks the planet up and kills off most of the dinosaurs. His cargo of humanoids is lost and just one pod remains - containing a little girl and, of course, our hero - Driver - has just lost his own little girl to an unknown illness. It's essentially a survival movie, which has more pitfalls and pratfalls than an episode of The Walking Dead but with dinosaurs rather than corpses. I have seen much worse and one can only presume it's got a low rating because it was made with money and took itself a bit too seriously. Still a fun thing to watch. 6/10

A Loki Love Affair

Apart from being a load of shite, the thing that spoiled Thor: Love & Thunder was the lack of Loki. This week's dip into the MCU's past brought us to Thor: The Dark World, a film that I could actually write an awful lot about, such as it being the first in what would end up being a theme in the God of Thunder's later three films - tragedy. This is the movie that Thor's mother dies; the next one Odin dies and the most recent one Jane Foster. Thor's plagued by those he loves dying. I mean, take Avengers Infinity War, even Loki dies in that. Everywhere Thor goes death follows.

This second outing for the God of Thunder is much maligned and frankly, like Iron Man 2, it deserves a lot more love. Yes, there are sections in this that feel a bit too comedic, without actually being funny; some of the supporting characters are either underused or shouldn't have been in it and given the seriousness of the story, it feels a bit frivolous at times. However, it is a good film because of Tom Hiddleston's Loki. Written in character again after that awful rendition in the first Avengers film, which if anything should be etched on Joss Whedon's headstone that 'He fucked up Loki.' Loki is brilliant in this, heroic, deceitful and always the best character on the screen whenever he's on it. Oh and I have to point out that Fandral, the dashing blonde haired swordsman friend of Thor, is played by Zachary Levi - aka Shazam - but you'd never see it unless you know he plays this part, because he doesn't look a thing like you'd remember him.

The Dark World is the story of a dark elf called Malekith, who wants to plunge the universe into darkness, but Asgardians get in the way. The villain, played by Christopher Ecclestone, is really just a cypher to introduce us to another of the Infinity stones. Bits of this feel as though the MCU was still just feeling its way; that it had an idea but it was still embryonic. It's far better than the 6.7 rating IMDB gives it and far more important to the grand scheme of things than people thought. It's a movie that deserves another, careful watch. 8/10

Dear John...

I first discovered Michael Dorman in the fantastic For All Mankind, so I was pleasantly surprised when he turned up as the lead in a 2015 TV series called Patriot, some of which I talked about in a previous blog. This is one of the funniest, most surreal pieces of television I have ever had the pleasure to watch. A show where lots of random shit happens and yet eventually it makes total sense. We have just concluded watching the first of the two series and while there has been a slight suspicion that we might have seen some of it before, it was one of the best TV shows I have seen in a long time. Dorman plays John, a CIA 'specialist' who has to do a job for his security chief father - Terry O'Quinn - but it requires him to do it without CIA help or cover. It involves getting $6million to a puppet candidate in Iran, who would be president but also 'working' for the USA. So John gets a job at a pipe manufacturers in Wisconsin to enable him to take the money to Luxembourg, to deliver it to an agent of the Iranian who is aligned to the CIA. The problem is one thing goes wrong and that has a domino effect that means by the end of the first series there's a Japanese puppeteer, some Brazilian Ju Jitsu experts, an all-female homicide department, a car accident, a folk duo, some duck hunts and a man who wants John to kill him. You will not watch a better, more twisted TV show this year...

Two Thor to Thit Down

Right. I'm going to make a definitive statement. Thor: Ragnarok is the best MCU film of the lot. It has everything - tragedy, comedy, action, peril, jeopardy and redemption. It also has the Hulk and, of course, Loki, who I declared as my favourite MCU character, ever (except in Avengers, because Avengers he was badly written). I find it remarkable that Taika Waititi could make such a brilliant movie and then follow it up with such an abysmal film, because Thor: Love & Thunder is probably the worst MCU film and there have been a few stinkers over the years. Ragnarok is almost perfect as an action/comedy/ adventure superhero film; it has everything and even has an epilogue full of menace.

For those of you who might not have seen it, it starts with Thor defeating Surtur, returning to Asgard to discover that Loki - not dead - has tucked Odin away in a retirement home in NYC. A brief cameo from Doctor Strange sees the brothers head to Norway where Odin shuffles off this plane of existence, releasing their sister Hela who plans to destroy everything and regain the Asgardian throne. Before Thor and Loki can do anything they are kicked out of the Bifrost and find themselves on an alien world where Thor meets up with old pal The Hulk before they enlist the aid of a failed Valkyrie and return to try and save the day. It is relentless, yet still manages to tell a great story, have excellent quiet moments and have a villain who is as nasty as you can imagine. The special effects are fantastic and it has absolutely everything you want from a superhero film. 10/10

Babies

After what I thought were two slightly underwhelming episodes of Shrinking to kick off the third and final season, episode three came crashing back with an absolute brilliant episode full of laughs and poignant reflection. We meet Jimmy's dad, played by Jeff Daniels, in what seems like inspired casting and Paul - Harrison Ford - is beginning to realise that he hasn't got long for this world and his friends are beginning to realise the same. Brian is about to become a father and as usual has most of the funny lines and Christa Miller's Liz is both hideous and fabulous at the same time. Yes, there's way too much neighbourly love and it's full of larger-than-life people, but it's still one excellent TV show and it's episodes like this that will make me miss it terribly when it's gone (and to think I didn't even fancy watching it when it started, I just felt that as an Apple TV+ show it was worth giving it a chance, and boy was I right).

A Bunch of A-Holes

In a week of superhero films, we ended it with a revisit to The Guardians of the Galaxy (Volume 1) and the introduction to what must have been the MCU's biggest risk, at the time. Like so many of the older Marvel films, it's surprisingly better than recent efforts, but like the second Thor film, there were lots of things that got ironed out by the time they got to Volume 2. What is also surprising was that James Gunn probably had the entire trilogy thought out before he made this, because there were things in it that played important parts in the later movies. 

This is essentially an origin story of how the team got together and all the characters, apart from Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) were a little rough round the edges. Lots of things were introduced that fell by the way, such as the Nova Corps, the strange aliens that worked for Thanos and other little things that I'm not going to get into or this will likely become longer than the rest of the blog put together. It's a film that I have grown to like more after three or four watches, because I really didn't like it the first time round and I still feel the dialogue and plotting have issues. Considering I really didn't like Volume 2 (which I expect we'll watch in the next week or so) and I think Volume 3 is one of the best MCU films of all time, you can see why my feelings about this trilogy are all over the place. 7/10

What's Up Next?

In a week largely made up of Guy Ritchie films and superheroes, whatever next week brings is likely to be... well, strangely similar, given I have more Guy Ritchie films to watch and I still have a few superhero movies to rewatch...

Shrinking will edge towards its conclusion and we might start watching some of the things I've alluded to in recent weeks, but never seemed to get around to, just yet. I also want to watch Small Prophets as everyone seems to think it's brilliant. As I've got a bit of a Tom Hiddleston man crush at the moment, I might even finally get around to watching season two of The Night Manager. 

Other than that, who can say? The sun shone this morning. It was fantastic and we really need more of it in our lives. I'm still going to exercise classes - yes, I feel like I've fallen out of a plane for about 24 hours after, but I suspect it's doing me more good than harm. 

Today, is Valentine's Day. A special day created by greetings card companies to exploit idiots out of even more money. FFS, if you fancy someone tell them, if you love someone then if you aren't telling them every day, you're a massive cunt.