My Cultural Life - Things to Come

What's Been Up? 

* I managed to go through the entire world cup without watching a single game. I did watch the last ten minutes of the final, last Sunday and was pleased to see Spain beat FIFA - against all the odds. I know a lot of my friends watch this spectacle of excess every time it's on, but it simply leaves me cold. That said, I have no real interest in international football, especially in the current world climate - we need to bury jingoism not praise it.

* I've been to the dentist - actually I went last Thursday (that's the Thursday before the last by the time you read this blog). I've always had a healthy cynical belief about dentists only really being interested in screwing money out of their 'customers' and given the last but one time I went, my dentist was promoting a new Colgate toothpaste to me (I'm not shitting you), this belief hasn't changed. I had to have (another) tooth out; this one was next to the last one I had out and it appears that all the damage that was caused to this new ex-tooth was done when the ex-tooth next to it was removed in 2025. It was cracked, right across and was the result of a trauma caused by the previous extraction. When I said to the dentist that it was probably all his fault, he laughed, thinking I was joking. 

Then a week later, I had to return because the extraction had left so much detritus that it got an infection and that infection caused all kinds of unexpected and unpleasant knock-on effects. I really don't trust dentists at all... 

* I've mentioned Andy Burnham before in these pages but now he is PM and has been for five whole days by the time this goes live. I'm writing this on the day he takes the reins of #10, so I expect to edit it by Saturday, regaling you with right wing headlines declaring him to be the antichrist or worse than Jeremy Corbyn. The thing is, ironically the Daily Mail had a headline last week declaring that Burnham wanted to take the UK back to the 1970s, which felt a little strange really given that most gammony right wing supporters are all hankering for the UK to be taken back to the 1970s (when most of them were young and only remembered the summer of 1976 and idolising Jimmy Savile). Many Gammons will see that headline as an endorsement, surely?

* I've read three books in the last three weeks. I'm not bothering to review them because they're all over 10 years old and probably have limited curb appeal. The thing is some people might not like this current spell of warm [hot] sunny weather, but I love sitting in the garden reading. Subsequently, I look like I've just returned from a package holiday in Torremolinos from 1977, having slathered coconut oil all over my pasty English skin for maximum burn. I was looking at myself in the mirror, after a bath the other night, and realised that while I think I look healthier, it's a pretty subjective thing in 2026. I don't see anyone younger than about 40 with tans now - at least not natural suntans - in fact, the other day I saw a young woman walking down the street and she was so white I could barely look at her without being blinded by the glare... 

* What is it about the return of the mullet? Possibly one of the most misguided fashion styles of the 1980s seems to have made something of a comeback, as I see more young people sporting possibly the worst hairstyle other than the combover. What amazes me is that parents are letting their kids have this horrid cut despite having witnessed first hand what an awful fashion decision it was first time around. Perhaps these parents are just evil... and if they are, how cool is that?  

* I heard a 'joke' the other day. Some guy who is very overweight was asked if he'd considered doing exercise and he replied, "I'm a master of Piechi." 🤣 

* The summer will come to an abrupt end if people continue to bandy the D word around, because of the lack of rain. We all know by now that once the D word is mentioned the floodgates will open and that will be the end of summer, even with a month and a half of it to go. Haven't we learned from the past 50 years that whenever the word that rhymes with OUT is mentioned, the weather changes and the heavens open? [The forecast is for rain today - the day this blog goes live]

* Many entitled and privileged Americans think there's nothing wrong with cheating. We saw it with the World Cup and most recently with the Open Golf championship, when fat cat golfer Bryson DeChambeau threatened the R&A with a phone call to Donald Trump if they didn't remove the two shot penalty they placed on him for trampling down long grass to give himself a better swing at a shot during the open. Fortunately, the head of the R&A allegedly told Mr Whiny that he can call Jesus for all he cared, he was not getting away with cheating...

Trailer Trash

You know something has to be very important for this semi-regular section of My Cultural Life to be the lead story/review and I suppose the first proper trailer for Avengers: Doomsday fits that bill perfectly. Now, freely available to watch wherever you get your previews, I saw this on the Tube of You on Monday night. I wasn't expecting it and I really didn't know what to expect. It starts with RDjr talking as Doc Doom and his Latverian accent is pretty dodgy and the way he's talking suggests that something I've considered might be coming true [Essentially, I believe he will dupe the heroes into helping him and they will come up against another group of heroes, probably assembled by Loki to stop him]. Then the narration switches to Thor - being the most senior Avenger left knocking around. He talks about a threat so great it's essentially scaring the shit out of him and how the remaining heroes have to stand fast and be ready for the fight ahead of them...

There is then a montage of various superheroes fighting each other - Gambit v Shang-Chi; Yelena vs Mystique; then the meeting of different sets of heroes, such as the Wakandans, the FF and Thunderbolts, a sneak peak of Loki and then Thor versus Doom and Thor doesn't look like he's got a hope; he hits him with everything and Doom just stands there and takes it. The narration continues with the God of Thunder concluding it by suggesting what they really need is a miracle... And then this two minute trailer delivers the sucker punch; the scene that will have any fan of good MCU films forgetting all the bollocks that went before; the return of Steve Rogers and to prove he's the real deal Mjolnir races to him like a love sick puppy. It's really the only scene they need to show; no one cares anything about anyone else, they just care about the real Captain America being back and ready to kick some Dr Doom arse!

The Truth is Out There

If Steven Spielberg's alien films were to be thought of as a trilogy, then Disclosure Day would be a conclusion to a series that started with Close Encounters and then ET. The thing is - and I'm not sure if it's a problem or not - this doesn't really take off until the last 25 minutes, when it becomes a proper Spielberg movie. Josh O'Connor and Emily Blunt are the conduits to give the world the truth about aliens - abducted as children and given unique abilities to ensure the day when all is revealed will be done without histrionics or panic. The thing is, it might be me but I felt the actual plot and story needed a little more grounding; some credibility and development. It was like we were supposed to identify with the different factions and accept the situation and possibly fill in our own blanks. The other thing is I don't want that and this struggled to paint as good a premise to become engaged with as it could have done. By being confusing and unexplained, it lost its impact and the second hour of the film felt like it needed more, other than the clock watching that happens around the 60 minute mark.

Colin Firth plays the head of a dodgy - privately owned - company called Wardex, who control anything alien rather than, in this instance, the US government, who it appears cannot be trusted. O'Connor's Daniel worked for Wardex but 'quit' taking loads and loads of incriminating data. Blunt's Margaret is a TV weatherperson, who hasn't been able to settle in one place since an event happened to her when she was eight and now starts exhibiting strange abilities. Colman Domingo is the 'rebel' pulling all the strings to ensure that Disclosure Day happens and while it's an energetic chase film with some sci-fi overtones, it felt slightly half-baked in places; undercooked you could say and lacking in some of the depth it needed to be able to flesh out the characters who needed to be fuller and more rounded. It's entertaining enough, but I can see why it has such a relatively low score on IMDB (6.6). I enjoyed it, but it lacked something. 7/10

The Good AI

I apologise, but this is going to be a bit of an essay... Gareth Edwards - the film director, not the rugby player - is a man of two extremes; he either makes really good films or really bad ones. His good films include Star Wars: Rogue One (which many believe wasn't his film at all, but was another director brought in to repair a film he made badly) and my favourite movie of the 21st century Monsters (also a proper Marmite film). His not so good films include Godzilla (which is much maligned, but is actually not that bad apart from the unnecessary bollocks in it and the fact you barely see the monster) and Jurassic World: Rebirth which is a bit shit. Then there's The Creator which is utterly superb and regarded by many critics as his best work.

In a present day that is scared to death of AI and the grim future that's being spoken about it, The Creator really is not a movie that should win many friends, but with its position of painting the USA as a horrible warmongering country prepared to slaughter innocents to make people think that a mistake its top scientists made can be attributed to AI and its suggestion that AI and everything that comes from it is a good thing, it really takes a different view of the future and what a quite brilliantly rendered future it shows us. This is a film that looks utterly awe-inspiring and has a story that transcends humanity. It's a love story on different levels, but it's littered with evil characters, misguided fools and secretive subtexts. 

John David Washington plays Joshua - an undercover army spy sent to infiltrate an AI base and uncover the identity of Nirmata or The Creator. Gemma Chan plays his pregnant wife, a woman with a secret who may or may not have been killed by the US in a raid that goes horribly wrong at the start of the movie; Allison Janney plays Colonel Howell, a truly evil, almost plastic faced, commander prepared to kill anyone and anything in her way and Ken Watanabe is Harun, the self-styled leader of the Asian resistance and AI simulant. However, the film's real star is Madeleine Yuna Voyles as Alphie - the Creator's greatest weapon - an AI child who will grow into becoming the saviour of both man and robotkind. This is an extraordinary piece of work that is better the second time around; it draws you in almost from the start and is an amazing bit of cinema. 10/10

Hi-Speed Lunacy

Bullet Train reminded me a little of a Guy Ritchie movie, except it was considerably zanier and slicker than anything Madonna's ex-husband has ever managed. It was another 'second viewing' feature and although we'd only seen it less than four years ago, much of it felt new to us. Brad Pitt plays a kind of bag man, employed to retrieve a briefcase from said Bullet Train in Japan; he's standing in for another 'employee' and that's where the problems start and also end. This is a frenetic film with a host of guest stars and in many ways is an Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Brian Tyree-Henry vehicle, as they have far more lines and arguably more screen time than Pitt. The brief premise I gave you is really not even a fraction of it, because the train is inhabited by a vast array of assassins and people linked to a man called the White Death (Michael Shannon), who all have their stories and parts to play. It's great fun and the perfect thing to watch if you didn't want to watch the World Cup final (which this year was Spain versus FIFA). 8/10

Dragon Apocalypse

In this week's exhilarating episode of House of the Dragon, no one is winning. Stay tuned for another thrilling review next week!

Train Wrecked

Peter Dinklage - remember him? Tyrion Lannister from the series about dragons that didn't have that many dragons in it but was far more entertaining than the thing I reviewed directly above. Back before Game of Thrones, he starred in an indie film called The Station Agent about a man who worked in a toy train store who inherits a Station House in a quiet corner of New Jersey. It's just Finn's kind of place - in the middle of nowhere with no one to disturb him or remind him that he's a dwarf. Except the first day he arrives he meets Joe (Bobby Cannavale) who runs a hot dog van, inexplicably parked near his new slightly dilapidated and isolated home. On the same day he is almost run over - twice - by Olivia (Patricia Clarkson) who is separated from her husband and grieving about the death of her young son. He also meets a young school girl and the local librarian (Michelle Williams) and all of them, annoyingly, want to be his friend.  

This is a slowly paced comedy drama about friendship, loneliness, grief and discovery. It was an excellent snapshot of life the first time we watched it (about 20 years ago now) and pretty much still is now, even if it now seems a little too brief and slightly superficial. It has some genuine funny moments, some very tender ones and you really warm to the way Finn slowly allows people into his life. 8/10

Back in the USSR

We slowly made our way through the first season of Star City and while it's bleak and full of women's hairy armpits, it's also quite gripping. While the Soviet space centre gears up for trying to establish a base on the moon - in 1970 - Rhys Ifans's character is secretly planning a trip to Venus - which is a concept I can't quite get my head around given this is the Soviet Union and the KGB knows everything about everyone, including when people take a shit, so they're going to know if someone sends a rocket ship into space on a two year mission. There's also a snapshot of what life in the USSR was really like - and it was never pleasant. What this series also does is introduce us to Sergey Nikolov, the man who was to play an important part in For All Mankind and was responsible for the downfall of Margot, even if it wasn't his fault. This is a great show with a great build up and a tense finale that will have you wanting more.

The Leap Too Far

The overriding problem with Captain America: Brave New World is that it should never have happened. There's nothing wrong with Anthony Mackie, in fact he's the saving grace in this movie, the problem is everyone else and the story. This was a six-part TV series at best, but Marvel/Disney made it, then made it again, then reshot large amounts of it, re-edited it and eventually were left with a steaming mess that ticked no boxes at all. It starts okay, but not really in the same league as any MCU film prior to Infinity War, but then it just spirals out of control and ends up being a heap of shit. Harrison Ford was badly miscast as Thunderbolt Ross, Shira Haas looked like a slightly disabled skinny 14 year old and literally her entire subplot ended on the cutting room floor and Tim Blake Nelson's Leader couldn't have been that clever because he was found out on a number of occasions. Shoehorning in elements from The Eternals and the first (and to date only) MCU Hulk film felt like an exercise in crossing Ts and dotting an I. What's worse is this is yet another recent MCU movie that has felt even worse the second time around. It also has the second worst rating of any MCU feature (5.6) and that rating seems optimistic. 5/10

The Sweet Turns Sour

This week's episode of Sugar begins with a flashback to when John first arrived on Earth and how his first job went horribly and tragically wrong - a lesson in how his people have to avoid becoming 'human'. The problem for him is what he's considering is all too human, especially when everything he's doing - the lengths to protect Ji - may be for nothing as he finally realises who and what he's up against and how he could be helpless to stop it. He doesn't get the required support from his friend in the police force and he's running out of options, but it doesn't stop him from enjoying a night with Charlotte.

What's Coming Up?

We're getting to the point where writing this blog is becoming difficult because of the lack of material. The FDoD has fewer than 20 movies on it now and while there's a bunch of TV to try out, I'm lacking in any real motivation to start some of it. As usual, I'll probably be able to fill a blog with what I watched, but original movie content never seems to be as good as I hope and we drop as many TV shows as we watch. The rest of the summer could involve some barrels and a lot of scraping...