My Cultural Life - Beginnings and Endings

What's Been Up?

I've been really quite ill most of the last two weeks. Got absolutely knocked for six by a nasty influenza virus which has fucked me up since the start of the last week. I've felt so rough I didn't watch anything but shite daytime TV all of the previous week and we've had a guest so a couple of evenings have been conversation-led with some radio. 

I still manage to waffle on though...

Disclaimer

Oh, by the way, for TV shows that are ongoing I try to avoid any spoilers; for old TV shows that we're finally watching, there might be spoilers, but, hey, the review is of an old show so... For movies, if it's a new film then I will avoid spoilers; if the film is over two years old then not so much.

Just My Imagin-AI-tion

It looks fantastic; it has excellent actors in it; but it's one of the most tonally wrong shows the Disney/MCU has ever released and that's a shame, because if it had swapped out some of the unnecessary Vaudevillian humour for some genuine thoughts on AI it might have felt like a really good and relevant TV show rather than something that isn't really part of a 'trilogy' that has been shoehorned into this reality. VisionQuest should be so much better, but four episodes into this, only, MCU TV show of the year and I can see why the chances of the MCU TV Universe being abandoned are very great. The biggest problem I have is that after four episodes, I don't know why this even exists... James Spader is excellent though.

Yet, How It All Began...

Every fibre of VisionQuest was born in Iron Man. There isn't really anything in the TV series that wasn't introduced in some way by the Marvel Cinematic Universe's almost unbeatable debut feature - watched again, because I wanted to. When you look at this 2008 movie and then compare it to some of the shit that gets pumped out from the Mouse House now, you have to wonder where it all went wrong. What a cracking movie this is, even if it wasn't a superhero film it would blow people away. Oh and how this universe has 'developed' from this humble but totally awesome beginning. It's one of the MCU's top five; it never ages. 9/10

Like a Wick Man

We had a guest; we figured he might like to watch Nobody and 20 minutes into it, he asked, "Have you guys seen any of the John Wick films?" We haven't, why? "This is a John Wick film with different characters. You should watch the John Wick films." We will, but, this Bob Odenkirk one-man-army film is great fun, if a little fluffy around the edges. Quiet, unassuming husband with a dark and secret past finally cracks after years of inactivity leading to him taking on the Russian mob and kicking their arses. At least, that's how I saw it, both times I watched it, until I saw a John Wick film... 7/10

Ideal Homes

I had a existential moment while watching Don't Worry Darling, and that was down to the fact that I realised I had to write a review of it and while I was quite enjoying it, I wasn't inspired by it. I took the piss out of Harry Styles not being a very good actor and was impressed by Florence Pugh's range. I worked out how many people in the film had also been in a MCU movie. I also wondered if The Eternals would ever see a sequel and very much doubted it - as two of the stars of this appeared in that. In the end I concluded that this was a modern updating of The Stepford Wives but with a nostalgic twist. Obviously there was an element of distastefulness about it, as you'd imagine. I simply didn't enjoy it and found it slightly annoying. 5/10

Last Monday Blues

We started by watching Open Range, a 2003 western from Kevin Costner. We gave up on it after an hour because it was really fucking glacial. We moved onto the third episode of Simon Reeve Wilderness, which this week was in the Yukon and was even more dull than the previous episode. Only Connect was a highlight and we finished off our anticlimactically meh evening with a new episode of Pointless, which had so many stupid people on it I now believe this is a dumbed down entertainment show rather than a quiz show. Mondays used to have some interesting stuff to watch, not any more... 

Zealots & Fanatics

It is difficult to believe that The Name of the Rose is 40 years old and if you take out the very 1980s electronic music in the outro it holds up remarkably well. It looks good, the story is compelling and it's full of ugly grotesqueries. Sean Connery plays William of Baskerville in this Umberto Eco adaptation, with a very young Christian Slater as his young apprentice, Adso of Melik. Baskerville arrives at a remote monastery to debate whether Christ owned his own clothes with other religions at the behest of Pope John. This is the backdrop to a murder mystery with many twists and turns involving comedy, lust and stealth poisonings. It's an absolute classic film. 8/10  

And the Point Was?

The Guest is a Dan Stevens vehicle, and it's also the first Dan Stevens film we've seen that we could have dodged. He plays an ex-army 'person' who, for some unknown reason, visits the family of a dead serviceman posing as his friend. Why is never delved into, but 'David' is a one man army kind of guy and the US army are as worried as shit about him. As he offs various people and gets all sinister and weird on people, all I could wonder was what purpose this movie had and by the end, which leaves it open for a sequel that never happened, I wished I'd watched something else... 4/10

Buffeting 

The Plane feels like it should have been much worse, yet it whizzed along and ended up being sort of reasonable. Gerard Butler plays an airline pilot who crash lands his NYE plane onto an island full of really bad men. It's his job to get his passengers to safety and we're in one man army territory again, except he has some help - Mike Colter - and a team of special forces hard men. To be honest, I shouldn't have given it house room, but it was fun in a 'I'm ill and will watch anything' kind of way. 6/10

Enigmas

The Imitation Game is a film I'd never watched, but given the amount of time I've had to kill while being ill... It's a cracking biopic with Buffalo Custardbath as Alan Turing - on the spectrum and very gay - as the main person charged with solving the Enigma code and giving the UK and allies a fighting chance of winning WW2. Keira Knightly is great as his beard, Matthew Goode is underused as Turing's #2 and it is an achievement to make such a compelling movie about a bunch of mathematicians in a room at Bletchley Park. 8/10

Choose Not Bothering

Neither of us had ventured into the sequel waters of T2 Trainspotting, it might be because the original didn't resonate with us like it did others... However, nearly 10 years since its release and rapidly running out of things to watch, we gave it a try and it isn't a patch on the original; in fact it feels like a kind of TV spin-off. There wasn't really anything about this that made you want to care. 5/10

The Wick-er Man

Have you ever seen Nobody? It's essentially John Wick but with better actors. I totally understand why I've never watched any John Wick films, but now I've seen one I know I'm going to end up watching them all... I suppose these are the ultimate one-man army features, as John Wick or Baba Yaga - the Bogeyman - is someone you don't fuck with and if you do fuck with him then you have two hopes and Bob has left the building. Keanu Reeves can't act, but doesn't really have to as his John seeks revenge for the death of his dog and the theft of his beloved Mustang - simple things, but important. This opening film begins to introduce us to the fabulous world of Assassins' Guilds and honour amongst hit men. The opening movie is okay, it's like a violent ballet draped with style. 6/10

The Wick-er Man Too

John Wick Chapter Two is longer and explores the world of the Assassins' Guild a little further. John has achieved what he wants, but is dragged back into the world he wants to escape by the man who holds his marker. This has double cross writ large all over it, but we get some international violence, more balletic Gun-Fu, and an extra 40 minutes of run time - oh and a Matrix connection. In many ways it's much better than the original because there's money and a purpose now; I think I'll stagger watching the remaining films a little, this kind of thing hurts your head... 7/10

Friday the 13th

This has to be the most Curate's Eggiest thing to appear on TV all year. A retelling of the old Friday the 13th films, with a relatively feasible explanation thrown in. This is a TV show that is simultaneously excellent and awful.  The very camp Crystal Lake feels like it was made in 1973 (sans gratuitous nudity) with two people who can act and a bunch of extras reading off autocues; yet there's something addictive about it even if it stinks the room out. Linda Cardellini is fabulous as Pam Vorhees, switching from psycho to femme fatale like any good psychopath. There's a bunch of odd subplots, trash acting, an excellent town sheriff who seems to have that Jaws vibe all around him and a mysterious ex-serviceman who might be the only person who knows what's going on. The wife gave up on this, but I've stuck with it. There's a lot of dislike, but also a lot to sink your teeth into... 

Ice Cream

Been wondering when this blog is going to appear? Well, the plan was for Saturday 24th, in the morning, but I opted for a later posting to make sure I actually edited it. So that meant Saturday night's - the third one without a blog - film was either tagged into this or kept for next week. I opted to the former, mainly because we watched Scream (2022), the reboot of the awful horror franchise. It was absolutely shite. People paid money to see this crap?

What's Up Next?

Before anything else, I'd like to recommend The Great House Revival, currently on iPlayer. It's an Irish George Clarke show without George and it's all the better for it. What I liked about it was it backhandedly shows us what we're missing from not being in the EU, especially when it comes to free money...

As I'm still ill I have no idea what's going to happen. The wife has my lurgy now; the last two plus weeks have been shitter than a runny cow's arse. 

The clocks go back - the future is even more fucking dull than it was...