What's Up?
Christopher Nolan's masterpiece The Odyssey has come in for criticism from the far right for casting Lupita Nyong'o as Helen of Troy; apparently arseholes, um Nazi historians are angry that it's 'historically wrong' to cast a black actor in this role, despite Helen of Troy being a made up character who isn't at all historical. In fact, black casting has been increasingly in the news over the last few years, with white supremacists getting angry about black people playing mermaids, Shakespearean characters, even er... black people. White supremacists don't want black or brown people cluttering up any of their entertainment.
The thing is, I get it, sometimes. I don't get why people [read: arseholes] get annoyed about fictional characters being portrayed by actors of a different colour, because that is simply racism and shouldn't be tolerated. I do, however, take issue with history being... ahem... blackwashed. I also almost take offense at the idea of people casting non-white people in roles where there simply wouldn't be a non-white actor because they're worried about the backlash. This doesn't happen very often, mind, it's not like I rage at the casting of a black actor the way some Reform spokespeople rage about black actors appearing in a large number of adverts on TV. I understand why they say things, I just don't think it's an argument that is worth getting into - mainly because it's difficult to try and make an argument against it without sounding like a racist.
In fact, the only thing I've seen in recent years that annoyed me was the fantastic Wicked Little Letters and the casting of Anjana Vasan as an Indian women police constable in a true story from the 1920s. Not only were there no women police officers then, there most assuredly weren't any Indian ones. It doesn't matter how good Vasan was as Gladys Moss, it simply wasn't historically accurate and I'm sorry, but that spoilt it for me. We rail against the establishment for rewriting history, yet we allow filmmakers to distort the past to appear to be 'woke' and, of course, by appearing to be 'woke' they then get accusations of being woke from people who are racist rather than sticklers for historical accuracy. I could have lived with the changing of Jesse Buckley's character's Irish husband (in real life) into a black West Indian, but having a woman - whatever her race - as a police constable 30 years before the first women police officer was unnecessary and is just an open goal for racists and Reform voters.
When you get actual historical inaccuracies like this, it makes it so much easier for arseholes and racists to attack something like The Odyssey for casting a non-white person in a fictional character's role. I mean, there's even been annoyance about a Bostonian actor playing Odysseus and a bunch of white English and American actors playing Greeks. Also, don't forget that Leonard Bernstein's family were not only happy with Bradley Cooper playing him in a film, they praised his performance, despite the actor not being Jewish or gay, this didn't stop a lot of wankers raging against it...
Oh For Fuck's Sake...
So, the other week, the wife was at work when a colleague said she'd been to the cinema the night before and seen a film called
Backrooms. When she was asked what it was like, she said, "I wouldn't watch it again" and then added, "It had a really crappy ending." Now, I think that is a relative description, because I'm sure someone, somewhere will watch it again and also probably think the ending was great. That same person, or even persons, might think this is a great film and who am I to argue with them. After all, it's all a matter of taste...
Backrooms is about a place - possibly another dimension, or a decaying echo of the past recorded on a different level of consciousness. Or it's just a fucking awful film using a slightly off-kilter direction and sound scape to make the viewer think they are watching something strange, and, boy, is it strange, but not in a good way. Chiwetel Ejiofor plays Clark, the owner of a discount furniture store whose marriage has fallen apart, he's drinking, living in his own store and seeing a Norwegian shrink about his issues. He discovers an interdimensional doorway, in the store's basement, which leads to a never ending series of yellow rooms, each with odd things in them. He's also convinced there are other people there, people or things. Renata Reinsve plays Mary, his psychiatrist who also has had a strange life, which is touched upon. She goes in search of Clark and ends up in this weird yellow world. Very little happens; she's saved from a giant mutant pirate version of Clark by 'scientists' and then doesn't know what is going to happen. The end. That's one hour and 45 minutes of my life I'm never getting back. 2/10
Southern Gothic
I was about 30 minutes into
The Skeleton Key when I realised that I'd seen it before, but a long time ago. There were things that just rang bells - John Hurt and especially Peter Sarsgaard - who rarely plays the good guy. The main problem I had with this 'Saturday night' movie was it had a lot of promise but fell a little flat as far as the scares were concerned. This was a hoodoo thriller with an enormous twist at the end that, to be fair, I'd forgotten about, but didn't exactly make me think I'd watched anything other than a relatively generic 'ghost' story. Kate Hudson wasn't bad as the girl uncovering wonky doings in an old southern mansion, but I felt she was exploited a little because it was Kate Hudson and getting her baps out was possibly expected. It was okay, but had some massive plot holes and an obvious red herring. 5/10
Ancient Reeves
When we discovered that
Holidays in the Danger Zone: Meet the Stans was 23 years old it put so much into perspective. George W was still US President; it was only two years after 9/11 and the people on the first of the two episodes we watched were all talking about the recent fall of the Soviet Union. Oh and Simon Reeve looked like he'd just recently been born... The first of these two 2003 documentaries featured Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, both bleak and unforgiving countries that had much of their soul and culture ripped away by the Soviets, but had grown to be more trusting of Russians than anyone else. I said to the wife, it would be fascinating if Reeves were to revisit these documentaries in the next few years to see how much has changed.
The second part of this two part look at the Stans features Uzbekistan and Tajikistan and these are two far more scary countries than the first two. In 2003 Uzbekistan was more like the old USSR and there was a real feeling of jeopardy for Reeves and his crew, while Tajikistan, which was one of the poorest countries in the world when this was made, was a contradiction in terms, with a country full of very rich drug barons side by side with people on $5 a month. However, while the Tajiks were poor, they were incredibly hospitable towards the film crew and towards westerners in general, whereas none of the other countries were. It was an interesting look back on a past that probably is no reflection on these four countries in 2026 - but we may never find out.
Triple Bollocks
Oddly enough, most of the reviews I read about
Triple Frontier said very much the same thing as I will say about it; it starts very well and then pretty much loses it about halfway in. A group of ex-CIA operatives go on a private mission to rid South America of one of its worst drug barons and steal as much of his money as they can and keeping it for themselves. Starring Oscar Isaac, Ben Affleck, Charlie Hunnam, Pedro Pascal and some other bloke, it literally lost its way and the way it was written, with Affleck's character acting like he was written by two people who didn't know what the other had written. The story was an example of how everything that can go wrong does go wrong and by the end I just couldn't wait for it to finish. 4/10
Dragon Lanced
Yawn... This week's
House of the Dragon was on TV on Monday night. There were more dragons in it and some other stuff. It seems to be a race to the bottom: which monarch is worse than the other? While the old regime, or what's left of it, goes around being shits to the poor people of Tumbleton, the new incumbents in Kings' Landing are weeding out insurrection by being horrible to everyone, thus fostering more insurrection, I've no doubt. Basically, if you're not a royal or friends with one you are cannon fodder, unless you are Aegon, who is having to sift through shit and kiss the feet of his underlings to ensure he's not killed for being a cock. Oh and Matt Smith's daughter has undergone a drastic transformation as she tries to keep her wild dragon in check.
Spaceba Comrade
Anna Maxwell Martin has no problem looking her worst for whatever role she's playing. She does vile horrid bitch so well, you wonder if any of her real life friends actually like her, for fear she might knife them or something. In the
For All Mankind spin-off series
Star City, she plays a Soviet hatchet woman, who is in charge of security and ensuring that sedition doesn't happen and if it does, making sure that whoever does it doesn't do it again. Rhys Ifans plays the head of Star City - the Russian NASA - although he's not allowed to really be in charge and the CCCP don't want anyone knowing who he is or what he's done. This first series seems to be set in 1969, telling the story that was happening in the background of the first season of For All Mankind; it's a little disconcerting because all the Russians have colloquial English/Irish accents, but all the writing is in Russian, but it's suitably bleak and harrowing as we get to know, in the opening episodes, the main players in this alternate history alternative view...
Cartoon Bollocks
While England were being knocked out of the World Cup, we decided to watch the 2024 remake of
Road House, the film which originally starred Patrick Swayzee, who was replaced in this by Jake Gyllenhaal - showing just how far this one time A list actor has fallen. I only really wanted to see this because it had the fabulous Jessica Williams in it, but her role was less substantial than you would have thought, given she was the owner of said Road House and Gyllenhaal's employer. The thing is, for the opening hour this wasn't a bad movie; it was most definitely not terribly serious, but it was fun, then Connor McGregor was introduced and it took a significant turn for the worse. It really was comic book stuff, with staged fights, dodgy villains, over the top action sequences and corny dialogue and while it was a far better way of spending the evening - I could have been watching my first full game of the World Cup - I think I would have preferred a visit to the dentist (which I needed). 4/10
Sweets For My Sweet
Just last week I was saying how, for such a short series, they manage to cram so much into
Sugar and while this week was no exception, it did feel like this was one of those 'filler' episodes, despite a lot happening. John manages to subvert the crooked cops from what they thought they were doing, while doing some introductory research into the cactus guy who seems to be working with the dodgy senator from the first series and spend an entertaining evening with Charlotte (who I still think is more than just a potential love interest). The interesting thing about Charlotte is she's played by Laura Donnelly and it's quite a remarkable transformation from the woman who made her name in such things as
Outlander,
The Nevers and
Werewolf By Night - it's taken me four and a half episodes to realise this. It's still a classy TV show even if this week felt - oddly - like it was not going anywhere, even if it covered a lot of ground.
What's Up Next?
I suppose this coming week is going to be dominated by what Andy Burnham does in his first week as PM and how many minutes the press are going to give him before they start digging the knives in. Burnham might not be as left wing as some of us would hope for, but he does seem to be a step in the left direction - at the moment. I'm being quite reticent about his anointment as Supreme Leader and hope that he has the balls and the backbone to stand up to the likes of Trump and even the Clacton Fuhrer, who is apparently either neck and neck or behind Count Binface in the polls. Oh we can pray and keep everything that can be crossed crossed. As I said to the wife, anything less than an increased majority is going to be seen as a massive defeat for the Fag Ash Fuhrer and a defeat would be the end of him and likely the end of Reform. I'm betting Kemi is praying for a miracle.
TV has more of the above, while films is a dwindling resource - I still have about 40 to watch, the problem is finding the motivation to watch them, or a willing wife who will put up with some of my choices...
As the heatwave finally wanes and we're faced with a week of actual old skool summer - but still no rain - will I manage to keep my shorts on?
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