What's Up?
There is nothing up. It has been a sunny and warm week and I've been reading a book in the garden and avoiding wankers like Trump, Farage, Starmer and anyone else that deserves our scorn. Next week might be the same as we have almost another week of summer before it all comes crashing down and we get our winter coats out...
No Time Like the Present
I suppose, in many ways, X-Men: Days of Future Past is probably the best film in the long and laborious franchise, but the reason is probably because it should have ended the franchise on a high. However, we ended up with three more, really shitty, sequels and the strong desire to go back in time and prevent Sophie Turner from taking up acting. Thankfully, she wasn't in this and it's all the better for that. This is the melding of the two generations of X-Men stories, getting the old guard - Sirs Patrick Stewart and Ian McEllen - with the new - James McAvoy and Michael Fassbinder and tied together by Huge Ackman's Wolverine, who gets sent from the future to 1973 to try and prevent Mystique - Jennifer Lawrence - from killing Tyrian Lannister or Bolivar Trask as Peter Dinklage was called in this film. There's a few stuttery bits of continuity and dodgy outcomes, but it tries very hard to wrap everything up so that another soft reboot could be started. It still doesn't really show us why X-Men should work as a visual concept or even be considered as possible future film franchise, but the overall impression I got from this movie was how Richard Nixon looked like an Italian Mafia hitman. 7/10Palooka Face
Well, one thing I can safely say is Poker Face isn't going to fill that gap in our TV schedules. That is because, after four episodes, we decided it literally was just Columbo reimagined for the 21st century. This was confirmed in the third part when Natasha Lyonne grabbed a cigar from her pocket and lit it up. I mean, how long before she gets a dirty grey raincoat and starts knocking on Robert Culp's door? [Sorry, old joke anyone under 60 won't get and most over 60 won't find that funny] The problem I had with this is it's a bit zany [it's not] and her schtick is based around picking up on one tiny little lie which she then picks at like a scab until she works out what happens, but because she can't prove it, she manages to set the culprit up so that they still get caught. The other problem I have is wherever this woman goes someone dies... For fuck's sake don't let her go to the Caribbean or to Midsummer because if she does there's going to be carnage and more dead bodies than an apocalypse. I also don't really like Lyonne. I think she's essentially a one trick pony. She was basically this same character in Russian Doll and I'd bet at least 50p she was the same character in Orange is the New Black. I really wanted to like this but it soon became obvious that like Columbo it's formulaic bollocks. Next?Trash Trailer?
Not really a trailer - which begs the question - why? This is one of those MCU featurettes, this time for Ironheart, which streams on June 24. It's basically a mini-interview with Ryan Coogler, of Black Panther fame, about developing the character for the small screen using clips from the forthcoming series as the main backdrop. However, this precedes any trailer for it and therefore acts as a de facto trailer, plus Coogler is just the executive producer, so doesn't really have much input. There is usually a problem about now (if this blog had a common theme among anything I write) and that is the commonly known 'fact' about this show is that it's been in the can for over two years largely because it's a pile of shite. There is a distinct backlash against the Marvel Multicultural Universe - the one that now exists inside the MCU - and there is this opinion that while the USA isn't the biggest box office return on the planet, without it success is never going to be guaranteed - it's a tail of the dog thing and the tail wags the dog.Ironheart is apparently not Marvel's Iron Man replacement despite her being clearly Iron Man's replacement. The armour is helmed by Riri Williams, first introduced in the yawn-inducing second Black Panther film, who is a hybrid of Tony Stark, MacGyver and Richard Pryor. She can basically create a nuclear fusion generator out of the stuff you'd find on an old Blue Peter episode and sticky back plastic. She's obviously not safe because she's just a college kid and goes to MIT and hasn't got an armed guard given she's one of the cleverest humans on the planet. So this is what I think will end up being the premise for the series, that and enough excuses to have nu Iron Man go through a series of special effects, to try and tweak the hearts of all those Iron Man fans.
There is clearly little appetite for this show and it comes at a decisive time. Thunderbolts* has been getting some increasingly good reviews and still sits in the high 7s on IMDB (and it might be reflected in the box office), which is just what the entire franchise needs and there has been a buzz about superhero films again. Will the release of this add to that buzz? Not in a million years; it's being dumped with little or no fanfare...
Incidentally, turn away now if you think this could be a spoiler, but I've heard that Fantastic Four: First Steps has an ace up its sleeve, which might work. The trailers for the film so far have given us an idea of what to expect, but apparently all the footage used is from the first hour of the film, because the second half of it is going to get really weird and isn't likely going to end the way anyone expects.
But, enough of the digression, Ironheart looks like it will be competent as far as the action sequences are concerned, but it's the rest of it that needs to achieve something and right wing USA, where the life blood of Disney+ live, are making it clear that they're fed up with their superheroes not being predominantly white with the odd - Black Panther - aberration. Kang was never going to work and that makes you go down all kinds of conspiracy theory rabbit holes... What I think the MCU is doing is showing that superheroes exist all over the world and are not just limited to the USA, but in Marvel Comics history foreign superheroes were few and far between, almost a novelty item and the right wing is using this to bash Disney over the head. I'll watch Ironheart and I will judge it on its merits. I can't say that this featurette has made me anything but still ambivalent erring on the side of zero expectations.So... the day after I wrote the above, the first proper trailer for Ironheart dropped and while I might have been relatively correct on my presumption of what this is going to be about, the general impression from the trailer is 'My God this looks like it's a pile of shit!" I mean, proper dodgy. It's available on the Marvel Entertainment Tube of You page - I think you should look so you can put yourself off watching it before it arrives...
Better Chimp
Our Wednesday night started with a decision. We need to watch some of the stuff we have otherwise what's the point in having it. So, the wife made the decision and she put Anora on - you know, the film that won lots of Oscars about the pole dancing prostitute who marries a Russian mobster's son. We managed 30 minutes before we gave up on it. Perhaps I'm simply miles apart with what people watch and class as Academy Award winning fayre, but I found it exploitative, dull and uninspiring. On the decision to turn it off, I said we needed to watch something else and the wife immediately put Better Man on. This is the biography of Robbie Williams as a chimpanzee and I found it entertaining, slightly strange with a few too many musical numbers. The strange part is probably explained away by Williams' early noughties album Escapology, which has always felt like some kind of autobiographical concept album and this pretty much adapts it without using all the tracks. It's a movie about redemption and how to recover your career after being labelled a massive drug addled twat. I'm not sure it was as good as some reviews suggest, but it certainly wasn't a heap of shite like others also suggested, Personally, I quite like Williams, so I'd give it a 7/10.Trailer Trash!
And then there was a proper trailer for the new Superman film and I'm really a bit worried. This looks like it might be absolutely fucking awesome and we now know what the plot is essentially going to be - Superman prevents a war between two countries, saves a lot of people and is considered a traitor and a war criminal for getting involved - even if people were going to die. So it's clear that this Superman film is going to be about the Man of Steel becoming Public Enemy #1 and this new Justice League team has been charged with bringing him to justice and it's all being manipulated by Lex Luthor. The 180 second trailer is just brimming with quality special effects, dialogue and things that give you that shiver up the spine; like this is a film that's really going to matter. Obviously the bar has been raised and there will be two camps - those wanting this to be a huge success and those who think we've probably seen the best of what this movie is offering. Whatever it ends up being this has been the trailer of 2025 so far, by a country mile (sorry MCU, not sorry).No Budget X-Men?
I have been banging on for a couple of years now how I don't think the X-Men will work in a revamped MCU. I simply think the preposterousness of the X-Men wouldn't work unless they developed it from almost the very beginning of the rise of homo superior and, of course, the problem with that is if it doesn't strike gold immediately the chances of a slow and legitimate introduction to the idea of a mutant race ends up being rushed and loses the aging process that it needs to succeed. There have been a few films in recent years that have explored this idea of humans born with superpowers, most recently watched was the extremely excellent Fast Color [sic] which starred Gugu Mbatha-Raw as the second generation of people with fantastic abilities and her need to protect her daughter from men who would do them all harm...Then there's this, a film I wasn't even aware existed 24 hours prior to writing this review. Freaks (not the classic Todd Browning banned movie from 1932) stars Emile Hirsch and Bruce Dern and is about people with super powers living in a world where the authorities hunt them down and eliminate them with barely a skip of a beat. Hirsch plays Henry Lewis, a man with - among other things - the power to slow down time and create time bubbles where he and his daughter Chloe essentially live. They have been in one for about three months - on the outside - but seven years on the inside. Henry is teaching his daughter to lie about her situation and create a new identity for herself for reasons you discover later in the movie. Both the father and daughter think Chloe's mother is dead, but the appearance of Bruce Dern seems to suggest the mother isn't dead but is held prisoner in a place that is really bad for these 'freaks'.
This is a film made on almost zero budget, with a small ensemble cast and a massive sense of paranoia and fear. It feels... off... almost from the beginning; there's this sense that what we're watching might not actually be true or even real. There is also a distinctly dodgy vibe coming off of it to start, just to add to the tension. This is a future where everyone is scared of the possibility that a freak might be living next door or is going to kill everyone who is normal; a world where anti-freak propaganda has worked as well as Nigel Farage's message about Making England Great Again. There are some elements that don't work as well and the lack of any noticeable budget means that some scenes are underplayed or are 'transferred' into settings that accommodate the story as well as possible. Yet it's a cracking little film and conveys exactly what Marvel/Disney needs to do if they want to properly introduce mutants to the MCU. That introduction (and first couple of films) need to paint the kind of picture that Freaks does extremely well. I'm giving this film a 7/10.Dacia Duster?
So J.J. Abrams has a new TV series out. At least that's the impression I got, but it turns out he's one of about 20 executive producers and he came up with the idea (along with someone else). Duster isn't about a crappy 4x4 from a Romanian car company, it's about a small time criminal who acts as a 'gopher' for a crime syndicate. That crim is Josh Holloway of Lost fame and he's now 56 years old and boy does he look it. No end of 'work' can detract from the fact he's almost an old man playing a hip and trendy 1973 dude. The series is also about a black FBI agent, overcoming her colour and her gender in an Arizona office that is full of racist, sexist wankers. It was not the most enjoyable opening episode I've ever seen and I'd decided after about 15 minutes that I wasn't going to be an avid fan, nor was I going to watch any more episodes. I use the expression style over substance a lot, but this was the epitome of that definition.I Almost Completely Forgot...
So I'm editing the blog getting it ready for publishing and I notice I haven't reviewed this week's The Last of Us... Do you know why? Because it's a load of shite. Very little happened this week despite the story advancing and the girls arriving in Seattle and getting one of the Wolves who killed Joel. We almost had another musical number, but thankfully they stopped as the strumming began and I'm beginning to think that with two more episodes to go, it might be two more episodes and then I bail out. I've never understood the love for the TV show. I get that gamers loved the game, but on TV it has been masses of fuck all with the occasional action-packed episode. It maybe wouldn't be so bad if Bella Ramsey could act or was interesting to look at and the gay abandon the two girls have for the supposed dangers out there in their world make it difficult to swallow...Neighbourhood Watch
Did I wibble on about the quality bar being lowered last week? I mean, when a show that I didn't even like to start with has become one of the TV highlights of the week, I'm beginning to think that TV in 2025 isn't as breathtakingly awesome as some TV critics seem to think it is. Your Friends and Neighbors [sic] has really turned into an ensemble piece rather than a show about a Raffles type American rich guy who steal from the rich to feed his paucity of funds. The thing is John Hamm's TV show has become compelling viewing, even if hardly any of it involves him stealing stuff. It's all about the rest of the cast, from Amanda Peet as his ex wife to Olivia Munn, the woman whose husband has been murdered, who is having casual sex with Coop (Hamm), who has now been arrested for Paul's (her ex-husband) murder. There are some quirks about this that feel more contrived than actually real - such as the detective who seems to think Coop is guilty of anything based on an argument he had with the deceased and nothing else. The thing is it's fun, it's interesting and it's now become quite entangled with more to it than meets the eyes. I'm going to stick my neck out and recommend it.Robo-Thing
Oh look, a new Apple TV+ series, there must be a Y in the day... This time it's Alexander Skarsgård in a new series about a robot, with humanoid features (except he doesn't have a penis) who has found a way to override his programming but ends up working for a bunch of space hippies on a mysterious planet with strange creatures and even more weird mysteries. Tonally, I'm not sure, Skarsgård has never been the best actor in the Skarsgård family and this feels like the wrong fit for him, but the opening two episodes weren't bad; the special effects were better than I would have expected and the premise; security robot might have killed a lot of humans after his programming override is now charged with protecting a bunch of largely stupid offworlders who aren't paying the 'Corporation' enough money to get the best of what's on offer. The episodes are less than 25 minutes and the jury is still out, but at least I'll be tuning in next week, unlike some other new TV shows that I've already stated I won't...What's Up Next?
The coming week is likely going to be all about football as my team - Spurs - play in the Europa Cup final, in Bilbao, against Manchester United. Football has been torture this season. Spurs, led by some fat Australian wanker, have been awful and will finish the league season one place above relegation. It has been so bad that it reminds me of Brexit. Half the fans are frothing at the mouth demanding the fat Australian wanker is sacked, while the other, far more deluded half, want him to remain as manager even though the team has been fucking atrocious. I expect my team will lose (again) and 2024/25 will just be remembered for how much my team upset die hard supporters by being so shite...
Welcome to Wrexham is back, which seems appropriate as the football season draws to a close. This is a very enjoyable documentary series that isn't just about football and has added Hollywood A listers; the first two parts of season four will be reviewed next week.
Some things head towards their finales, while others are just starting their journeys and I've added a few films to the FDoD in case I find more time to watch stuff this week. But the pub beckons tonight and as long as the summery weather continues TV will take a back seat (that's until Friday then...).