My Cultural Life - Time Waits For No Man

What's Up? 

Me. That's what's up. I was looking at Facebook memories last week and it being April, six years ago we had that thing called lockdown, where everything stopped and we avoided each other so we wouldn't die. It was a bit like WWII except without bombs and fewer Nazis. I posted a lot on Facebook, much of it humorous or poignant. One thing stuck out for me, one of my family suggested I write a novel and I admitted, honestly, that I simply didn't have the inclination or motivation to sit down and write anything...

The thing is, I wrote a novel (my last) about 10 years ago now. It was called The Imagination Station and it was about a sentient mushroom and the small Leicestershire village it took over. The wife read it and I've never looked at it again. Back in January, I decided that 2026 was going to be the year that I opened up my 'In progress' folder (a misnomer if ever there was one) and either dump stuff or do something with it. I even contemplated looking at the seven or eight novels I've got first drafts of and trying to do something with them. But it's now April and I didn't do any of those things...

I'll be 64 in eight days and I think I've had an interesting life, so far, but I do have this nagging regret that for someone who has written so many words, professionally and in blogs or everything else I've written, that I haven't become the widely published author that I said I was going to become way back in 1980 when I wrote my first 'novel' - incidentally about a young man with such amazing abilities that he was almost a god (I was reading a lot of comics and had just discovered Stephen King). I found that in the loft when we were moving nine years ago and it's now about four feet away from me (and hasn't been looked at in nine years).  

When I say 'regret' that isn't really what I mean. probably more angry and pissed off with myself that I have the discipline to write this blog every week, write quizzes (not the same thing, but you get the drift), emails, diatribes on social media - usually in comments sections where I'll be lucky if a handful of people bother reading and yet I can't sit down and develop any of the countless ideas I've had over the last nearly 50 years, or go back and do some turd polishing. 

This isn't going to be an opening monologue that ends with me declaring I've written or am going to write a new novel - that's not the case here, because over the last few years I've had fewer ideas than I used to have and even fewer of those ideas have actually made it to the 'word processor' and all of them have never been followed up. I have only myself to blame, it's not like I'm working or anything. I suppose this is more of an if you want to do something and you find yourself with time then don't piss and moan about not achieving things kind of thing; because, you know, time waits for no one so you have to seize the day.

Not the End

Shrinking finished. What I thought was the penultimate episode was, in fact, the finale (because episode one was actually episodes one and two). It became clear very quickly that this was the finale because Alice went off to college. Paul was already in Connecticut and Gaby asked her Derek to marry her. Jimmy discovered that Sean had moved out and everyone's lives were sorted apart from Jimmy's. He was nursing his wounds and feeling lonely and alone; his argument with Paul bothered him, his daughter leaving was killing him and he realised he still had a lot of work to do. There was a genuinely poignant and lovely ending, in two parts, one of them expected, the other not so much. And it was over and I felt a pang of loss; it had been such a great show, despite all the lovely wealthy people living their best lives and being impossibly happy and funny... except just before I sat down to write this, I discovered that it had been renewed for a fourth season, despite everything I'd read suggesting this was it. I am happy, because it's a great show, it will be interesting to see where it goes now the cast have all gone their own ways. 

Back in Town

The Boys are back for a final season and I think it's just about outstayed its welcome. It started off really good - a great contemporary superhero series that went the extra mile in terms of pushing the envelope, but after the crap spin-offs and the meandering shite story lines of the last couple of seasons, I don't really care what happens to it now. I'd like it to conclude and we can all move on to whatever comes next. Homelander now runs the USA, the Seven are just a front for Vought and a lot has changed in the year since season four's finale. Billy Butcher has reassembled the team, with Starlight in tow, for one last attempt at stopping the rise of the superheroes, by using the virus that was created and now is apparently strong enough to kill Homelander. It's full of bad language, bad taste and bad choices and even the death of a major character in the first of two parts, that dropped, hasn't really done anything to make this any better.

Plus, I have to mention Erin Moriarty - aka Starlight aka Annie January. What the actual fuck has that woman done to her face? Her eyes, nose and mouth are almost completely different shapes; there have been countless rumours about her having had plastic surgery and other cosmetic work and even if she hasn't (which I don't believe) it hasn't given her the acting ability she's been missing since she took on the role. Whoever has been advising her about her appearance needs drowning in a pool of their own vomit. I really don't want to seem like I'm being sexist or judgmental, but she looks both wrong and awful...

On the Bullseye

After the two kind of lifeless episodes last time, this week's Daredevil: Born Again was anything but. It's hard to believe this is a Disney show, but it really could be the way forward for Marvel if it can continue to make superb TV shows like this. It's just full of tension, jeopardy, violence and great acting. This time around the focus falls on Bullseye and his decision to repay Matt for killing Foggy. Matt's code prevents him from allowing the hired assassin from killing the Kingpin - although in reality it was Vanessa Fisk who ordered the hit. There was also a boxing match, one that could have spelled a problem for Fisk had circumstances not taken over and there was some hope for our heroes and our villains as the chess match continues to wind its way towards the inevitable ending. Top notch stuff.

Related to this is the trailer for Punisher: One Last Kill, a TV movie that's out the week after DD finishes in May, which will also tie in with this summer's new Spider-Man film, but is a standalone story. It looks very good and for once I'm excited to be excited because DD has lived up to his Netflix days, so I expect Frank Castle will be the same. 

No More Offers

I had never seen The Godfather Part 3, (or The Godfather: Coda as it was repackaged as) and after watching it I completely understood why. I'm almost tempted to ask if it was a comedy, but given the lack of levity in the first two films, I doubt it was, at least deliberately. In this third part of the trilogy Al Pacino is no longer playing Michael Corleone, he's playing Al Pacino (something he did from about the late 1980s on) and in some ways that adds a new dimension to this. The remaining cast members from the first two films - Diane Keaton and Talia Shire - actually have parts to play in this, although Keaton's role as Michael's ex-wife feels like it was needed to give the family aspect some balance (and to help Anthony escape the family). The real surprise was Sofia Coppola as Mary Corleone, this was nepotism as its finest. This girl cannot act. She was awful and whenever she was on screen, or speaking, which seemed like huge chunks of it, the film took on a quality way below what you would have expected with people like Pacino and Keaton on the cast list. Maybe she can direct, but she doesn't know how to act.

The story starts off reasonably okay with Michael trying hard to legitimise the Corleone family, but still having to deal with mob business, especially when Sonny's bastard son Vincent comes along, busts his way into the family - at the behest of Connie (Shire) - and then begins an almost incestuous relationship with Mary. Instead of having this punk wannabe Mafioso rubbed out, Mikey takes him in and shows him the ropes, but its not long before Michael is having to do boss business as Vincent can't leave bad alone. Then it gets catastrophically stupid, chronologically weird and completely batshit. The Corleone's foundation, which is charitable and does a lot for the Catholic church wants to bail out the church from a massive debt by buying one of its companies; this eventually leads to the summer of the three popes, suggesting that Pope John Paul I was in thrall to the mob and was killed off because of his relationship with Michael Corleone. [The year of the three popes happened in 1978, but this movie is set in 1980] It concludes with an almost 30 minute opera simile that is so ridiculous you had to think that Francis Ford Coppola was simply taking the piss. 3/10 

The Thief, the Cop and the VP

There's something about Chris Hemsworth that often bothers me - the simple fact he's not very good at acting unless he's playing Thor, which he is very good at. In Crime 101 he plays an emotionally stunted super thief, who robs expensive things from wealthy people but never harms anyone. Joining him are Mark Ruffalo as the rogue cop, looking washed up, who is obsessed with catching this lone thief that his department thinks of as the detective's Moby Dick and Halle Berry as the disillusioned insurance broker who is watching her life fly past while being overlooked for a partnership in her firm. This makes a heady cocktail of possibilities in a thriller that also has Nick Nolte (he's 85 you know) and Barry Keogh as Hemsworth's Bette Noir. It's an enjoyable movie with some convincing characters in modern LA, especially given how the gap between rich and poor is widening in the USA all the time. Not a classic, but worthy of a 7/10.

Shocker

Guy Ritchie has made some good films and he's remade one of his movies several times, changing just the characters and subtle tweaks to the story. Rocknrolla is essentially a rehash of Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels which has also been remade in different forms, at different times, in Ritchie's career. This time it's about dodgy real estate, a missing painting, which we never see, Cohen-esque style double crosses and unexpected events and it was loud, brash and not very good. There were none of the director's usual geezers in it, presumably because they'd all graduated to other films and roles, so this time it's Gerard Butler, Idris Elba, Mark Strong, Tom Wilkinson, Tom Hardy and Toby Kebbell as crooks, musicians, gangsters and gay associates; Thandi Newton is also in it as a kind of link between them all. I didn't enjoy it. 5/10

Powell's Curse

Glen Powell is a good looking fella, he also has a great speaking voice and there's a lot of smart money on him becoming the next George Clooney or Brad Pitt; the sex symbol actor of the 2030s, perhaps. The problem the 38 year old has is his choice of roles, specifically in film, which aren't bad, he could just do with reading the script before taking them on. His The Running Man remake was remarkably entertaining until the final 10 minutes when it became a WTF mess and his latest How to Make a Killing - which is a modern updating of Kind Hearts and Coronets - is spoiled by the final ten minutes or so, when the film ditches its moral dilemmas and goes for plain stupid. This is the story of Beckett - Powell - who is the illegitimate offspring of a mega-wealthy family, a family that dumped his mother when she fell pregnant and then refused to have anything to do with her ever again. So Beckett decides to kill all the potential inheritors off to claim the family fortune for himself. This was entertaining nonsense, with a slightly twisted viewpoint, until we enter the home stretch and it just becomes bad farce and bollocks. 6/10

The Krap

I'm not really sure how to describe the 1983 film The Keep mainly because it makes almost no sense at all. There's a good idea in there but it's hidden by one of the most appalling scripts I've ever heard. It was like the writer of the dialogue started sentences and forgot what he was writing about before he got to the end of the same sentence. Apart from making no sense at all, it was full of things that I don't really understand why they were even there. The film is about a platoon of German soldiers who have been assigned to guard a pass in the Carpathian mountains and set up camp inside an ancient keep - which was the most impressive thing about it. After a few nights there, the men start being killed off in horrible ways, so the commander - Jurgen Prochnow - contacts his superiors and instead of reassigning him, they send Gabriel Byrne there with his SS platoon and they start killing people and acting like proper Nazis.

The soldiers have unleashed some kind of demon and as this happened a man in Greece - played by Scott Glenn - wakes up and travels to Romania - by boat; we don't get any idea of who he is or why he's in Greece or why he's been summoned to the Keep and it pretty much stays that way. Also, Ian McKellan (sounding like a New Yorker) and his daughter Alberta Brooks - both Jews awaiting a move to a concentration camp - are also summoned to the keep, because he's an expert at something. There are lots of cameos from people we never see again, lots of dialogue that literally makes no sense at all and the special effects were... remarkable. I think I could have done better with some toilet rolls, sticky backed plastic and a used washing up liquid bottle. An achievement of staggering proportions, possibly the most nonsensical thing I have ever watched. 1/10

Names & Names & Names

Anyone who reads this blog often enough will know that I'm a big fan of time travel and time loop movies, so when a new one comes out I'm usually all over it like a rash. However, when I first saw trailers and heard about Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice I was a little sceptical about it. Yes, James Marsden has suddenly - in middle age - become the star he was touted to be in the noughties; Vince Vaughn has his moments and Eiza Gonzalez is a rising star, but any film that has Keith David or Dolph Lundgren in usually means 'cheap'. This wasn't cheap, as such, it just wasn't quite on target. Vaughn plays Nick, who travels back in time to get Mike to help him stop Mike from being killed. Alice has a key role to play, but anything else I say will ruin what is a thin premise with little science involved. It's not going to win anything. 6/10

Trouble & Strife

Two main things happened in the second episode of the new season of Your Friends & Neighbours - Coop's daughter makes a decision that rocks her parents, but especially her mother - Amanda Peet - who is entering the menopause and not coping well at all. The other thing is one of those things that you'd expect people with more money than sense to have floating around their unguarded houses, something which Coop hadn't counted on, but instead of going one obvious way, it decides to go in a far more 'interesting' direction. 

Death on Mars

One thing For All Mankind has never shied away from has been to kill off main cast members; it's happened in every series and usually they weren't expected, which is why they have been so profoundly impactful. The latest death is possibly the most poignant and deep reaching of them all, as a beloved character says goodbye and leaves us with just one of the original gang. This was an episode about the longest serving cast members - Joel Kinnaman, Wrenn Smidt and Coral Pena - how one arrives at the end of their story, one is going nowhere and one of them is finally getting the chance to do something that has never happened before. This was an episode about life and death and while it felt a little self-indulgent - with cameos from Michael Dorman and Shantel Van Santen - this show has earned the right to do that kind of an episode. I wonder where it's going to go now?

What's Up Next?

More of the same, maybe some wiser choices of films.

This has been an Orange Shitler free zone.