My Cultural Life - Ghosts and the Machine

In a week that has had little variety, this week's blog is on the light side - a combination of mainly binge watching one show all week and the sun shining. I was about to come upstairs, sit at the PC with a 'coffee' and edit and publish this, but I ended up sitting outside in the suntrap that is my patio. It's warm because we have a small Fohn effect thanks to the Galloway hills, the birds are singing, hooting and cawing, the skies are crystal clear, the air is clean, you can't hear a car and in the distance is the sound of pipes, playing something traditional and reinforcing the fact that it's Scotland and sometimes it really can't be beaten.

Here's what I've been watching and thinking about this last week...

What's Up? 

Has anyone else noticed that politicians who represent Far Right parties - Trump, Farage, Le Pen and others like that psycho in Italy, Meloni - seem to be exempt from public scrutiny or being beatified after being found guilty of things they're obviously guilty of. It's one of the crazy things about Far Right authoritarianism; it literally is a "Do As We Say, Not As We Do" rhetoric.

Marine Le Pen is obviously as guilty as sin of embezzling European parliament funds, but her sentence is far too severe (5 year ban from politics) according to anyone standing to the right of Keir Starmer. There are literally wankers out there demanding the death penalty to an asylum seeker who farts in public, but yer fave politician can literally commit murder and become even more popular. Farage is a despicable piece of human trash yet his popularity increases every time he says something you'd imagine a 1970s grandfather saying. Trump is a convicted felon, but his supporters are more concerned with some black or Hispanic person getting something they wouldn't get or pandering to the white supremacists. Le Pen is a fucking Nazi - the irony being she's a Nazi in France... When 'normal' people look at the state of the world, no wonder they're scared; no wonder they're becoming insular and acting like ordinary Germans did in the early 1930s. We might not agree with everything that is going on but the looney minority are slowly becoming the majority and we don't want to be seen as 'the enemy' when the jackboots return to trample humanity into the ground in the name of populism.

The Devil is in the Details

There might be some spoilers in this review... 

I think we all got played a little in the most recent Daredevil: Born Again. The reason is because the thing that has been lurking in the background for most of the series so far turned out to be something of a red herring and one that was concluded almost before we started to find out. However, while Matt Murdock dealt with a life and death situation under the noses of the Vigilante Force, the real power play was taking place inside the mayor's office and in a quiet little Italian restaurant. There is a clear suggestion that Wilson Fisk has begun to realise that his much adored wife doesn't view him with the same affection, which begs the question why is Michael Gandolfini's Daniel Blake still prominently situated inside Wilson's team of confidents, because he knows the boy is a Vanessa plant. There's also Arty Frousan, who plays Fisk's right hand, Buck Cashman, who is clearly not the political 'fixer' we thought he might be...

I have one nagging thing though. The IMDB Daredevil: Born Again page has a list of the stars of the show from Charlie Cox down to actors with fewer episodes. Jon (The Punisher) Bernthal, Deborah Ann Woll (Karen Page) and Wilson (Bullseye) Bethel are all listed as appearing in 11 episodes each, which means all three characters should be appearing in all the remaining parts, as they've  so far all made solitary appearances (Woll has been in two parts). The aforementioned Gandolfini and Frousan are both listed to appear in only six parts and both have been in six parts, so far. Elden (Foggy) Henson was going to be in as many episodes as Woll, but is now down for just two, which means we're in for a flashback at some point (unless that's already happened). It's a minor quibble, but suggests to me that Disney hasn't given IMDB an actual cast list. 

A Ghost's Eye View

I've seen some unusual films over the last few weeks alone and yet something else comes along and adds itself to that list. Presence isn't the best ghost story you will ever see; it isn't scary, it doesn't terrorise a household, it has no blood, guts or gore, in fact for the opening 20 minutes you're wondering what the tragedy is the family are being quiet about. You also wonder which of the adults is in trouble and how this will affect the rest of the film. I'm not going to give much away because this is a movie worth watching, if only for the unique perspective it is delivered with. You see this is a feature where you see everything that is important through the eyes of the ghost - the presence - in the house. So everything is slightly detached, much of the dialogue is incidental, although you know, as I said, that there has been a tragedy involving Chloe, the teenage girl in it. Plus you also get the impression that the mother, Lucy Lui, has done something criminal because her husband Chris Sullivan - who is excellent in this - is trying to extricate himself from his marriage because of something his wife has done - which you never find out - because you just see the bits the ghost wants you to see.

You could argue that the entire movie is just a bit facile; a bit too lightweight and ephemeral, but isn't that what a ghost is? It takes 20 minutes for the first poltergeist event, which is subtle but direct. It soon becomes clear that whatever the presence is it is looking after Chloe and has a problem with her boyfriend, who has his own related story. I actually found it to be a fascinating and interesting film; I'm sure it could have been done differently and I'm sure that it's relatively low score on IMDB is because it's a bit too cerebral for your average American idiot hoping for a horror film with some T&A. For me it was a clever approach with a few nice touches and a shocking payoff. It's worth a 7/10.

Out of Control

One of the strange things about Dope Thief - especially when it started - was how they were going to string the story out over eight parts? We're halfway through it and while the makers are doing a great job of pacing this, I'm often wondering if they're doing it to get a second season out of this. The main reason for me asking the previous question is because while the real DEA and other law enforcement agencies are involved, there's a lot of criminal activity going on they seem oblivious to and they seem to be one step behind a bunch of thuggish bikers - who may or may not be the criminal masterminds behind the entire dope network along the Eastern seaboard. Brian Tyree Henry is still excellent in this series, as is Wagner Moura, but it seems to rely on their acting and on screen buddy relationship rather than the story. It looked like we were going to get some back story at the start of this episode, but it just didn't happen. Don't get me wrong, this is a quality series with some great acting and a very clever premise, it just seems to be meandering around like every episode is the penultimate one in a limited series - the threat of something terrible happening but it never gets there. However, this week a bunch of neo-Nazis that Son sent to Ray to eliminate his threat get more than they bargained for.

Episode five at least moved the story on and we discovered why the DEA are reluctant to simply go and arrest Ray and his buddy. The thing is Ray is slowly deciphering the set up he and Manny brought down, more by luck than judgement, despite being stupid enough to go into the impersonating DEA officers in the first place. There's a slightly preposterous subplot involving the lawyer who has just got Ray's father out of jail, but as I said above they had to spin a relatively thin story across eight parts. I just wish they would spend more time on explaining the elaborate set up that this drug route entails and how we got to where we are. That said, it's an entertaining little series without ever threatening to become a classic.

Expectations Lowered

Eighteen months ago, when I did my top ten TV shows of 2023, The Change was one of the best. It was quirky, weird and while some of the characters felt a little cliched or unbelievable, it was extremely entertaining - hence being one of the best of 2023. So when news of its return came there was a frisson of expectation. However, that very quickly dissipated with the season two opener, which was literally a few seconds over 22 minutes and was just very silly; preposterously silly to be more accurate. The arrival of Linda's husband Steve (Omid Djalili) at the end of season one revealed nothing, but at the start of this he announces who he is and this causes a schism amongst the Forest of Dean's eel community - Linda (Bridget Christie) had lied to them about her 'status' there now must be a trial at the café/radio station and while Linda showed the right amount of WTAF, it - the trial - managed to destroy an entire first season's good work with something just a bit stupid, pointless and comedy Wicker Man. I hope the rest of the series improves because I felt really let down by the complete withdrawal from reality. 

Spaces of Amazement

The 13th season of George Clarke's Amazing Spaces started on Channel 4 last week and the more things change the more other things stay the same. Although this has some minor tweaks to a format that has seen Clarke well for well over a decade. This time round there's no crazy project for George and Will Hardie to produce (I mean, the observatory they built in 2022 for £40k has recently had to be sold to meet George's most recent divorce bill), instead they're looking at a selection of 'Amazing Spaces' they, presumably, didn't care much for when they were originally being built. George is in Portugal looking at their architecture and in the opening episode of this 13th (last?) series, there's a wanker who wants to convert a massive two-part lorry into a house and professional kitchen - nowt wrong with the idea, but the guy doing it just felt like a right prick. Meanwhile somewhere else, a very vibrant and strange couple built a mobile home out of a 1.2l Vauxhall Agila - one of the smallest cars ever made; this came complete with a dog trailer. This show's a tried and tested formula that seems to cram so much into 45 minutes now that more than half of the featured 'builds' are the beginning and then fast forward to the end, with fleeting glimpses of the process. It's still Clarke's best show, but it feels a little stale now, like it needs to take a break.

It's Not Impressive

We gave It's What's Inside almost an hour. It was different if a little abrasive. Very millennial and there was a proper modern horror feel about the cast, the camerawork and the idea - being able to transfer/swap your consciousness into other bodies. The problem was we didn't get to know or understand any of the characters enough to either care about them or understand or identify them when they were in other bodies. In fact it was a tough film to follow almost from the beginning and because we left halfway through I have no real way of telling you anything positive or meaningful about it. I just found it tough going, so did the wife and we've wasted far too much time finishing things we should never have started. I expect there was a horror element or something psychological. It didn't grip my shit so we flushed it away...

Punishing

We've finished the second (and last) season of Netflix's The Punisher and I've changed my mind about it somewhat. Yes, it's a great action/crime show with near super heroics from our titular psychopath, but there are many problems with it outside of Jon Bernthal's Frank Castle. Yes, he does growl rather than speak his lines, but Bernthal is the best thing in this show - he is the star - even if his character takes bullets like I take sugar in my hot beverages; gets stabbed more times than is humanly possible and has lost more blood than a transfusion centre. The problem isn't really with him, more to do with the regular supporting cast members and the rather laissez faire stylings of Homeland Security, the NYPD and any other agencies who specialise in law enforcement. Amber Rose Revah - agent Madani - is just a bad actor and so is Ben Barnes, who plays Billy 'Jigsaw' Russo; oddly enough, both are British, which I hope isn't the reason for their general crapness.

The second season ties up the Billy Russo hangover while dealing with another problem, John Bishop - not the Liverpudlian comedian - a psychotic killer, with a past, working for a family with a vested interest in keeping a family's business secret. The problem with the entire series is it is just so overwrought and serious; it needed some humour; it needed some humanity; which we almost saw in the opening episode but then it reverted to type. Don't get me wrong, compared to most current MCU stuff it's a quality show, but compared to Daredevil Born Again it's a poor and malnourished distant relative.

What's Up Next?

The first thing you notice about this week's blog is that's it. It's already finished and you were just settling in. We have had a relatively busy week, but we did watch 11 episodes of the second Punisher series, but that was down to there not being much on TV (that warranted even a cursory mention) and the fact I've been disappointed with the film releases so far this year. We're over a quarter of the way through 2025 and it has not been a classic year by any stretch of the imagination and next week doesn't look to be offering anything else to get excited about.

There's the penultimate Daredevil Born Again and the sixth part (of eight) of Dope Thief and not a lot else. We've got a few films to put on - which sounds like I'm brimming with optimism about them - and as we hurtle towards Easter probably very little else. TV and film watching feels like it's becoming a tough job and  keeping this blog full of interesting things is becoming even tougher...

As usual, what I see is what you'll get.

My Cultural Life - This Year's Model

What's Out?

I had a dentist's appointment in May 2024, but it coincided with the day of my good friend George's funeral, so I cancelled it and it was subsequently rearranged for December 4th. On that day, my dentist examined my teeth, took some x-rays and announced that I needed a root canal on my first pre-molar and this would be done at my next appointment on June 23, 2025...

However, during January, I started to have some serious problems with the tooth and so began three months of dental hell. I managed to get an emergency appointment by lying, except I wasn't. I made out the pain was worse than it was but by the time the emergency appointment arrived - 9 hours later - I really was in some discomfort. I was given antibiotics and told my name would go on the emergency list - in bright red.

I ended up needing two courses of penicillin before another emergency appointment at the end of February saw me undergo my first ever root canal. Because there had been some damage to the root, the dentist stuck a temporary filling in and intended to replace it with a metal one at the end of June. I was relatively pain free for the first time in months. However, that wasn't to last. Over the next five weeks, I had problems with the area around the tooth; it was sensitive (but not painful), itchy and weird. While I did everything that I was told - rinsing with warm salty water after meals and regular flossing - on Monday 24th March both temporary filling fell out almost simultaneously. I managed to get an emergency appointment for the 26th and within five minutes of sitting in the chair, the dentist told me that the tooth had become compromised and it was allowing foreign material to get into the root canal, causing infection and the tooth was no longer salvageable. It had to come out.

It was the fifth ever extraction of my near on 63 years and - touch wood - it's been the easiest and least painful. that might be because it had the nerves removed in February, or it might be because it came out with little or no fuss and left no serious damage around the socket. I actually wish it had been taken out in December, but at that point I doubt anyone - apart from the wife - thought it was going to be lost. The thing is a gap of over six months between identifying a small crack in the tooth and the start of decay to when the root canal was supposed to have been done is far too long, especially as it was sensitive in December and it was likely to become a problem sooner rather than later. But this is the problem with dentists in the UK in 2025; pretty much the same problem as anything else - not enough people, not enough money, not enough care. Just another example of how the UK is pretty much broken and there isn't a single political party who care about fixing it. Us plebs have just got to be grateful we have MPs looking after their own interests for us...

To Love and Obey 

What I knew about Companion you could write in big letters on the back of a postage stamp. I had an inkling about its star - Sophie Thatcher - by virtue of the film's poster, but other than that nada, nothing, zip. So, because I had this preconception, I completely second guessed the movie's premise and got that wrong - by a country mile - and therefore postponed watching it until this Saturday night, when it seemed the best of a bad bunch of films on the Flash Drive of Doom (FDoD). Imagine my surprise when it turned out to be an absolutely splendid - if slightly contrived - 'horror' satire. The really clever thing about this film is even when you find out the twist - which happens about 20 minutes into the movie - it in no way spoils the fun; in fact, if anything it makes it more enjoyable. Yet even that didn't go the way you thought it was going to go. For a 90 minute feature, this has a surprising amount of cliché busting going on.

Jack Quaid stars as Thatcher's boyfriend, who has an elaborate plan to make a lot of money at the expense of a friend who is having an affair with a Russian millionaire. This plan involves Iris (Thatcher) but despite it going according to plan something goes wrong in the aftermath leaving Quaid, his friend and their two gay companions having to clean up a mess that wasn't supposed to happen. This is a movie full of deprecating humour; it's like the film knows it's a sci-fi story but if shit like this happens in the real world then real shit happens. It's very funny; totally crazy and a bit weird. Thatcher is excellent, as is Quaid and the rest of the cast play their parts. It was, or at least started out as, a Saturday night piece of filler, but ended up being a quality piece of filmmaking that I recommend and give it a solid 7.5/10.  

Binge Watch

You know it's going to be a light week when two of the opening three days of the week have been... [ahem] ... punishing. Started last week, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday night have been The Punisher nights, as we binge watched something we spent eight years avoiding. This is a series with a really high score on IMDB and I now understand why. This isn't really Marvel's Frank Castle, this is an army vet who avenges the deaths of his family, in what he originally thought to be a mob hit, but now appears to have been done by or at least authorised by a CIA agent that Frank and his team first met in Kandahar, Afghanistan. This very dodgy man who is now high up in the CIA wants to erase every trace of Castle and anyone associated with him. This isn't a Marvel vigilante show, this is just a grim, violent and relentless story of subterfuge and double crossing; of bad spies and soldiers just following orders. Castle doesn't even get his trademark skull top out until two thirds of the way through. 

It also features Ebon Moss-Bacharach (soon to be Ben Grimm - the Thing) as the former CIA analyst who 'recruits' Frank to help them both clear their names. There's some dodgy acting in this - specifically from Amber Rose Revah as Home Security officer Madani, Ben Barnes as Billy Russo (with his wandering accent) and a number of other supporting characters, but Jon Bernthal, Moss-Bacharach, Deborah Ann Woll (as Karen Page) and Daniel Wilson as Lewis more than make up for this. If you've never been tempted by The Punisher this isn't what you might expect, so it's worth a look. 8/10

By the end of the week, we'd started season two. The opening episode sees Frank in a bar in Michigan, he's travelling. This appears to involve Russians, some possible call girls and even more violence, plus there's a spectre of his past lying in a heavily guarded hospital bed, who we'll probably get to know as Jigsaw. It just doesn't feel like the Punisher, who, to be fair, was always a really incongruous addition to Marvel comics pantheon. He debuted as a villain of Spider-Man and caught a zeitgeist in the mid to late 80s that spawned umpteen comics, with the occasional dance with a proper superhero to remind people he belonged in the same universe as Galactus and Thor. 

Primate

I've seen a few slightly negative reviews of The Monkey, but I think they all missed the point. I don't think they got it. This would have been called in the old days a black comedy, probably the blackest with a bit of slapstick and a lot of inventiveness and for the second time this week I sat down to watch something I thought I'd dislike and ended up laughing like a drain for much of it. With Severance having ended, I didn't expect to see Adam Scott (Mark S) again so soon, but he pops up right at the beginning of this, looking frazzled, in a pilot's suit, trying to give the 'toy' monkey he purchased back to the owner of the shop. This results in the owner being disembowelled in the most unlikely way. And that is this film from start to finish - how to kill people in the most inventive ways imaginable while sticking with a narrative which is simple - the monkey kills indiscriminate amount of people but probably not the one who activates it. Yet, to say the monkey kills them is a stretch because the monkey just watches and plays his drum, the rest is up to everything else.

Theo James plays twin brothers Hal and Billy whose lives are plagued and haunted by the 'toy' monkey their father brought them and they've never truly been able to rid themselves of - chopping it up, chucking it down a well - every way you try to destroy the monkey it just comes back more malevolent than ever. This is a peculiar movie which doesn't take itself too seriously (and I think the reviews didn't get this; I think they believe the humour - of which there's a lot - is misplaced for a 'horror' film) and it's all the better for it. It was made by Osgood Perkins, the guy who made Longlegs last year and that was the best horror film I've seen in a long time. This wasn't as good, but it was still quite excellent. 7/10

Double Dare

On the day that Marvel announced the cast list for Avengers Doomsday, they also released two episodes of Daredevil: Born Again. The latter was far more entertaining than the former (which we will get to later) because the Matt Murdock show has been the best thing from the MCU since the last Avengers film. In the first of the two parts, we get a strange standalone episode which features Kamala (Ms Marvel) Khan's father as a bank employee who turns Matt down for a loan to improve his law firm. It was extremely weird to have Ms Marvel's father in a TV show that has so many fucks in it. The entire episode is about a bank heist that Matt gets involved in; it's set during the St Patrick's Day parades in NYC and none of the other supporting cast feature. It might possibly have been one of the episodes that was shot before the entire series revamp, who can say?

The second part of the double bill was more like we've come to expect, with Matt and Fisk's lives mirrored on screen from the two of them having their own interesting breakfast conversations to the conclusion with both of them involved in things we associate these characters with - violence. While Matt struggles with his identity, Fisk is establishing a vigilante task force, made up of dirty cops. The main characters' conundrums are set in motion by The Muse, who is more than just a graffiti artist - a lot more... Muse is suspected to be a serial killer due to the fact that his murals are painted on walls with a mixture of epoxy and blood; lots of blood and from different victims - at least 60. We're heading towards the last three parts of the series first half so we need the characters we've tuned in for to come out fighting and that is exactly what happens. as Matt wrestles with bringing DD out of retirement, Fisk discovers the people who truly own (and run) the city and this just makes him angrier.

SHOUTY

What's not to like? A TV show about what happens behind the scenes in Hollywood. A show that deals the dirt on how stuff gets made. Jam-packed with famous guest stars; a top quality production team and fabulous reviews (at least there was one, in The Guardian). So it really seemed like a no-brainer when The Studio finally dropped, on Apple TV+ no less. There was really only one problem - it was a huge pile of steaming shite. I mean truly awful, filled to the brim with dislikeable characters who didn't so much act as just chew their way round the sets SHOUTING AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE. I really thought Seth Rogen had a winner here, but even he was shite. This thing had Kathryn Hahn in it and she was the worst thing in her own TV series. Rogen plays a Hollywood exec who gets the top job at his studio when the new owner - Bryan Cranston - fires Rogen's old boss and gives him the job on the condition that he makes profitable blockbuster movies, not auteur films (which is what he wants to make). To say this was unfunny, facile, unrealistic and a bag of shit is almost a compliment. We had the opening two episodes to watch, barely got through the first part and both had exactly the same thoughts about it - independently. Part two will never see the light of day in this house and that's a shame because I had hopes, but the first episode was so bad I don't want to subject myself to that shit again.

Trailer Trash-ette

Marvel/Disney spent over FIVE hours releasing the names of the confirmed cast members for Avengers Doomsday on the 26th March. It started with a 'directors chair' for Chris Hemsworth and then literally unveiled lots and lots of chairs with names on the back. They wheeled out the cast members of Thunderbolts (suggesting that no one dies in that film, not even the villain), the new Black Panther plus a supporting character from those films and Namor. The four - forthcoming - members of the Fantastic Four, the New Captain America and Falcon, Ant-Man, Shang-Chi, the interesting announcement that Tom Hiddleston would be back as Loki and then it ended with the big reveal of Robert Downey Jr. Except that wasn't the only 'big' thing; that was The X-Men and actors such as Patrick Stewart, Ian McLellan, Kelsey Grammer, Alan Cumming, Rebecca Romijn, James Marsden and Channing Tatum interspersed with all the others... Seriously you could feel people's will to live disappearing as more and more names of people who left this superhero lark ages ago were being confirmed in a film that looks as though it will have as many stars in it as minutes on screen. It wouldn't have been so bad had they announced a Jackman, a Berry, a Janssen, even a Reynolds, maybe a Ruffalo, or an Evans, a Holland or even a Renner. The movie is in production and is directed by the Russo Brothers. Underwhelmed is a thing, isn't it? 

The thing is I'm hearing rumours that RDjr isn't playing Victor Von Doom, he's Tony Stark from one of the other levels of the multiverse. That sort of sucks because it's fucking around with one of the sacred characters of the Marvel Universe. He was the ruler of a country, in Eastern Europe. He was the first true 'supervillain.' It's comics heritage... Plus, if this is going to be a cosmic epic with earths shattering consequences, where's Captain Marvel, Spider-Man, the Hulk, Wolverine, Colossus, Rogue, Jean Grey, the Guardians of the Galaxy, Doctor Strange, the younger versions of Professor X and Magneto, at least there's a better chance of both still being alive at the end of filming? There's a lot of setting up to do in Thunderbolts* (which I now believe is going to be a scene setter movie because of Sentry's involvement) and Fantastic Four: First Steps unless they're sneaking another film out between the FF and Avengers: Doomsday in May 2026?

Comic Genius?

Here's a few things ... We don't like Jim Carrey, with a couple of exceptions he is an actor who we avoid like the plague. We used to really like Andy Kaufman, but our exposure to him was essentially Latka in Taxi; he wasn't really big in pre-cable/satellite TV in the UK. We're big fans of REM, we think the song Man on the Moon is great, yet we have never seen the movie Man on the Moon. As 2025 so far has been about us watching things from the 1990s that we never bothered with, it seemed logical that at some point we'd park our prejudices towards Carrey and watch the film. The reason for this change of heart is the Andy Kaufman documentary that's coming out next month; I thought Man on the Moon would be a good place to really see if he was actually a funny man or if it was simply just a case of Latka was a funny character (with lines he didn't write).

The thing is Milos Forman's biopic is apparently really accurate - although it was weird watching a film about a comic actor who rose to fame in Taxi with Danny DeVito playing his real life manager when everyone who watched Taxi remembers DeVito as Louie, the cab rank manager. I expect it was even weirder for DeVito, who said in an interview years ago how he was great friends with Kaufman in real life, yet Louie is the only cast member of Taxi not seen in the sections of this film that featured the classic NYC comedy. 

If this film is anything to go by, Andy Kaufman was not a particularly funny guy; he was not some kind of comic genius, he was just good at tickling the surreal funny bones of many Americans. He didn't tell jokes; he wasn't very funny out of character - in fact, he was fucking annoying - and even his best loved character was only funny because of the lines that were put in his mouth and, allegedly, he didn't even want the job, he just used it as a stepping stone to further his own career. He did like pushing the borders of comedy, the problem was most people didn't get the 'jokes'. Carrey is great as the 'comic' and while the two of them didn't really look alike there is a similarity and Carrey is a great mimic so he got characters like Latka and Tony Clifton down pat. The thing is Kaufman just wasn't that funny, not under the microscope of a biopic. Following his short life (he died of a rare kind of lung cancer at 35) from wanting to be an entertainer when he was a child in the 1950s to his final days was actually really difficult; the fact he was a genius at setting up situations where the audience didn't know if something was real or part of his surreal shows was probably one of his only real abilities - the problem was they could be construed as in-jokes, designed by him to entertain the few not the many.

Carrey, when he acts, is brilliant; this is a part that was designed for him. Courtney Love as his love interest puts in a solid performance, as does Paul Giamatti as his writing partner Bob Zmuda (who doubled up as Tony Clifton at times). DeVito is excellent as George Shapiro, Kaufman's friend and manager and the real people who played themselves 15 years on were all much older. It's a good film, but it's also quite cold and oddly enough like Bob Dylan's recent biopic where the least likeable person was the star of the film, Andy Kaufman might have shone brightly for a while, but he was actually a bit of an arsehole at times, while being something of a saint at others - the problem is these were very rarely seen on screen. This is a good film but I can't really give it more than a 6.5/10.

A Semblance of Reality

It is Friday night as I write this. We have just spent the last few hours in our reopened community-owned town pub. It's been four years since we had a proper night out at the pub that is 110 paces from front door to front door and we've been missing it. All we had was two pints, but we saw old friends, made new friends and just basked in the fantastic feeling of having our pub back. It beat staying in and watching some shite film...

What's Up Next?

Double bubble Dope Thief and Daredevil Bjorn Again goes Abba. Probably some films. What you see is what I get.

 

My Cultural Life - Sects and Violins

What's Up?

I'm old enough to remember apartheid very well. Before it collapsed, the white supremacist leaders of South Africa banned all foreign journalists from the country in a move that brought widespread condemnation from literally every country on the planet. It was suggested that the white South Afrikaans were doing unspeakable evil to the ethnic majority and not facing scrutiny for it. Does anyone else remember that?

Then how is Israel's banning of foreign journalists in Gaza not exactly the same, with the same fears? Why aren't our press and those of all of the western world not making an issue out of the banning of objective journalism from this strip of land that has been bombed back to the stone age? Why does our press always refer to Hamas as a terrorist organisation but never refers to Israel as a sick, power-hungry bully? Why are they Israeli hostages, but Palestinian prisoners? It suggests that just being Palestinian is a crime and one that we're prepared to go along with.

Many countries regard Israel as the real terrorists here, but you'd be hard pressed to hear about that because here in the UK we have to make people think Israel isn't an ironically Nazi state determined to commit a genocide. It appears no one can see the irony.

A Complete Asshole

Why didn't Timothée Chalamet win the best acting Oscar this year? Because all he had to do was act like a teenager with a chip on his shoulder for two hours and everyone can probably do that... I'd heard so much about Chalamet's performance as Bob Dylan in A Complete Unknown; the fact he sang the songs and... er... acted like a young Robert Zimmerman and... um... rode his own motorcycle... Yes, he was okay as Dylan, but the nasal twang was missing from his singing voice and... oh yeah, he mumbled a lot - everyone mumbled; it was like someone reinvented mumblecore films; it was a tough movie to follow despite it being a quite easy narrative. Maybe this didn't clean up at the Academy Awards because it was just a perfunctory adaptation; a reasonable biopic with a smattering of docudrama thrown in for good measure.

Chalamet, as stated, played a young Bob arriving in New York in 1961 because he'd heard that Woody Guthrie (Scoot McNairy) was sick and he wanted to visit him in hospital. This was where he meets Pete Seeger - the godfather of traditional US folk music and someone who identified Dylan's ability straight away. Seeger, played brilliantly by Edward Norton, was in many ways the real star of this film. Looking and sounding like someone normal's dad or uncle, Norton got Seegers down brilliantly; like a cross between Bob Ross and Fred Rogers. The problem with this film is it all needed to be as good as Norton was and it simply wasn't. It soon becomes very clear, very quickly that the talented Dylan is an absolute arsehole, who will cheat and steal (music and ideas) to become famous and when he gets that fame he treats it like it's a problem. Early 20s Dylan was a complete cunt. Whether this is true or just a 'dramatised' version, we only have a handful of people who are likely to remember now and would they tell us how it was really like? This biopic goes up to the fateful Newport folk Festival appearance when Bob and his electric band upset the folk crew by playing rock n roll. 

It's all done extremely brilliantly. James Mangold tends to make excellent films and there was little or nothing wrong with the set design, the casting and the over all feel to the thing... But, it does a very good job of making you not like the legend the movie was about. It paints a very unflattering picture of the former Mr Zimmerman and therefore makes it a difficult film to like... you know really like. I'm going to give it a 7/10, but if I was going to mark it with my heart only, I'd struggle to give it a 5.

Breaking BOOM!

We've started watching Dope Thief; it's a new Apple TV+ show about two petty crims who pose as DEA agents so they can 'bust' small time drug dealers and get away with little or no call back. That is until they do a job that goes violently tits up. Brian Tyree Henry and Wagner Moura as the two petty criminals who bite off far more than they can chew when they bust a BIG deal; one that has undercover police all over it. That is basically the premise of this new show; a cross between Breaking Bad and It Takes Two. The thing is if you were an ignorant drug dealer, if Henry and Moura came swooping into your crib with their (fake) IDs and DEA puff jackets; you'd be hard pressed to tell the difference and that's the thing that makes this ongoing 'side line' so special for the two friends. However, there's always a back story and this time it appears to involve Henry's terminally ill father's girlfriend - played by Kate Mulgrew - and the death of a former girlfriend from maybe 20 years earlier. Moura has a life with a girlfriend, a home and plenty going for him. The two men should be going straight, but with what they've just done, they're looking at going to hell instead. The real DEA are after them and the bad guys are two steps ahead of the law. Three episodes in and it's top notch stuff so far. Yet we hear that Apple TV+ isn't a success and this blows my mind... pound for pound this streaming network produces by far the best TV, er... on TV. I've been saying this for five years and people need to dump shite like Prime and invest their streaming fees on a station that delivers.

Oink

I have watched and reviewed some strange things in my days. Films that made no sense or just felt like I'd wasted a chunk of my life on something unfathomable or just badly made. Movies that have been critical successes that just bored me to tears and things that I simply didn't get. I'm not sure Pig falls into any category or list; it was just deeply unusual. Nicholas Cage, a man who has somehow managed to reinvent himself over the last few years, is Rob, a man who lives in a shack, in some woods, who hunts wild mushrooms, specifically truffles and sells them to a young Portland wannabe. He keeps a truffle pig - a valuable asset - and seems happy with his lot. However, when someone steals his pig we go down a familiar path, except unlike, say, John Wick films, Rob isn't ex-special forces; he isn't a secret ninja; he doesn't have special powers. He's just a desperate man searching for his porcine friend. He does have a secret, one that is shocking to some people and there are, seemingly, a lot of fights. This is a film that starts, has a middle section and then ends. It wasn't unwatchable and I'll give it a 5/10 for being 'deeply unusual' and having mushrooms in it. 

God Bothering

Many years ago, the wife watched Dogma because she thought I wasn't interested in seeing it. I managed to survive the subsequent years without being too bothered. Recently, I got an itch to watch it; the wife had no problem watching it again and on completion I wondered what all or any of the fuss was about. It's a rather stupid movie, with some dodgy acting, a pretty impressive cast and... er... not much else, really. It must have spent all of its budget on the stars because anything that required money being spent on it happened off camera. Matt Damon and Ben Affleck play two earthbound angels, banished from heaven, who are desperate to get back. When they hear about some Catholic idea that allows them to create a loophole in God's wisdom and allow them to go home... the problem is to execute it would mean the end of everything. So, aided by a number of ethereal and non-ethereal beings - Metatron (Alan Rickman), Muse (Salma Hayek), The 13th Apostle (Chris Rock), Jay and Silent Bob - Linda Fiorentina (the most recent descendant of Christ's family) must try to prevent the two fallen angels from ending existence. The idea is to play with the concept of 'dogma' to the nth degree while giving it a contemporary religious metaphor to make it both an interesting narrative and try to show how ludicrous religious doctrine is. It was two hours of my life I'm never getting back. 4/10 just. 

Hospital Hijinks

There's almost a more interesting story about this film than the film itself. Made in 2001, Session 9 is the story of a asbestos clearing crew who win the contract to clear out an old, sprawling mental hospital. They win the contract because the gang leader - Peter Mullan - says he can do it in record time for a big bonus. His number two - David Caruso - isn't so sure, but it's difficult to determine because you don't really know when this movie stops being reality and starts being whatever is going on inside the main protagonist's mind. This is the thing, to properly understand this you probably have to give the entire story away and while it's unlikely that this will turn up on a streaming platform of find its way to Film 4, I don't really want to do that.

I will, however, tell you that originally the movie had a subplot about an ex-patient who lives near the abandoned hospital who watches the crew from a distance. Ultimately she kills the member of the crew that has lost his marbles. However, while this was in the original cinema release, it has since disappeared from the edit and the film is now 95 minutes long and doesn't have that part or, indeed, other bits that were filmed. So, despite one of the crew finding and listening to tapes of psychoanalysis sessions it stops being about the legacy of the inmates and becomes about mental illness and whether the hospital is the cause or if the nutter in the film has already sunk to the lowest depths. The film is on video tape, which makes it look like an old 1990s TV play and there is an element of TV movie about it, but it clearly wasn't that either. It was very creepy, had elements of nastiness and the new 'cut' still works as a psychological thriller, even if it seems like big chunks of narrative have been mislaid. Even so, I still can only give it a 5/10 because it promised much more than it delivered.

The Trouble With Kids

This is a review for Netflix's Adolescence episode one (of four) and might contain spoilers...

As someone who has seen the inside of a custody suite and knows a lot about young adults who have committed crimes, the first part of this four-part series felt all too real. Years of working in Youth Justice meant I knew the kid who was arrested in the opening scene was guilty even if the opening episode was trying to keep details to a minimum. Those details would arrive in the final ten minutes and they would be shocking for anyone not familiar with these procedures. The thing is Netflix hasn't tried to hide facts about this series from being known; they literally advertise it as a drama about the consequences and events around the murder of a teenage girl from the perspectives of various different players, especially the perpetrator. That's almost an understatement. This opener was one of the most powerful, scary and totally believable hour's of TV in years. It is upsetting, annoying and then the realisation that the things you were upset and annoyed about are totally misplaced. This is seminal television. This is doing something extraordinary and at the same time dealing with a subject that no one really wants to be witness to. Adolescence so far is hard, fast and totally bang to rights...

This is a review for Netflix's Adolescence episode two (of four) and might contain spoilers...

The 'action' moves to Jamie's school in the aftermath of the killing. The two lead detectives go there in the hope of understanding what has happened, to find out what happened to the murder weapon and to get an idea of what it's like for a 13 year old kid in an environment of peer pressure and internet grooming (in general, not specific). Ashley Walters looks bewildered for most of the episode as the school kids just do what they want and get little or no discipline from the teachers - which given the circumstances is probably understandable. This was about the first showings of grief and disbelief and the first signs of understanding as Jamie's Instagram account and the mysterious - to the adult police - emojis are solved.

This is a review for Netflix's Adolescence episode three (of four) and might contain spoilers...

This is many ways is the most disturbing of the four parts. This is stark, really disturbing and all credit to the young actor, Owen Cooper, for his chilling and pathetic performance as Jamie. This episode is about his last meeting with one of the child psychologists put on his case; it's also about anger and denial and examines the things I expected this series would - what motivates a kid to do something so horrible and how does he deal with it and the potential consequences. This is, apart from about two minutes, a two-hander, just Cooper and Erin Doherty as his analyst. It is frightening how Jamie's lack of emotional maturity (he is just a kid, after all) is portrayed so vividly and with a degree of incredulity, because even though nasty things like this happen we still want to believe that kids are incapable of it. This was the episode that sealed Jamie's fate and left people in a state of fear.

This is a review for Netflix's Adolescence episode four (of four) and might contain spoilers...

Wow. Just wow. Set 13 months after the murder, this was about mum, dad and sister and how they deal with any one day. If this series had been upsetting, then this was the emotional rollercoaster to beat them all. It examines the tragedy of being the family of a murderer; how the perpetrator of the crime leaves a trail of debris and pain behind. This is what happens when you lose someone but not to death but to a 'real life' horror story. Stephen Graham, who is probably our greatest living actor, the man who in episode one ran a gamut of emotions as he went from disbelief to realisation that something he helped create could do something so heinous, spends this entire episode trying to quell the anger, emotion and sense of having no control. This entire series has been, possibly, the best thing to have been made in the 21st century. There will be far more enjoyable TV shows, but NOTHING will equal the power and impact that this has. It's extraordinary television. Scary, original, tragic, gripping and so so real. You will probably never see anything like it ever again. 10/10

Castle's In Da House

The weird thing about this fourth instalment of Daredevil Born Again is I got the impression it was meant to be the 'comedy' episode. That said, there wasn't really much humour, but there was more than the previous three parts and three Netflix series put together. The fact that Wilson Fisk was on the receiving end of a two-part joke that ended with a Latvian choir's rendition of a Starship favourite proves to me that whoever is writing this is very good at their job. We still haven't seen Daredevil since the opener, but this week we get to see Frank Castle again as the Punisher comes back into the limelight and with a philosophy that Matthew struggles to disagree with. Castle touches nerves that no one else has managed since the death of Foggy and I think we're pretty much told that Castle wasn't responsible for the death of the White Tiger.

Everything about this series is like a game of chess, but the two flies in the ointment are the man who doesn't want to be a superhero any more and the man who is struggling to go straight; we know that both of them are on a collision course. We know that Wilson's tough straight man act is going to bite him on the arse and we know that both he and Matt will end up both hunting for the head of The Muse; the masked 'vigilante' who isn't a vigilante but a nasty killer. This is the best thing MCU TV has done. I loved Loki, but that was really all about the final episode; this has been about every thing from that crushing opening ten minutes in part one onwards. Stunning TV; Marvel's version of The Penguin.

Important Questions

I'm nearly 63. The big issues in my life are how long I have left to live and at what point will I suddenly lose all concept of size and width... While I have slowed down considerably when I drive (and when I say 'slowed down' I don't mean reduced speed, I mean been chilled while I drive and therefore do not allow others to bother me so much), I constantly am in awe of - usually - older drivers in small cars (often a Kia Placenta or some small hatchback) and their inability to be able to drive down a relatively wide road without thinking another, oncoming, vehicle isn't a tank or a combine harvester.

I see this so often up here. People thinking the little Peugeot hatchback they drive is about 20 feet wide. At what point in one's life do we suddenly think the small car or van we drive is actually wider than a Boeing 747? Is it sudden? Or do we just start to see oncoming vehicles as bigger the older we get? I presume these people once had no problem with visual perception? I said to the wife, when I start slowing down, or braking or simply stopping when another oncoming small vehicle approaches me, she has to stop me from driving, because if I can't work out how wide two vehicles and a road is I shouldn't be driving.

The Haunted

It's been nearly 25 years since The Others came out. It, like The Sixth Sense, had a twist that you don't see coming, but when you watch the film again - with hindsight - it takes on an altogether stranger feel. Nicole Kidman plays the neurotic mother of two children who suffer from a photosensitive skin disorder and they live in a huge sprawling mansion on Jersey just after the Second World War has finished. They are awaiting the return of her husband and the children's father - Christopher Ecclestone. The movie is very much an evocative period piece until the father returns, but with little memory and a desire to just remain in his bed. I mean, it had a weirdness about it before then, but when that happens you start to realise there's something else a foot. To make things even weirder, she has just taken on three housekeeping staff, Eric Sykes, Elaine Cassidy and Fionnula Flanagan, who seem to know more than they're letting on. The thing is you view this entirely differently second time around; the things that were creepy or frightening originally are now plausible and the ending is a mixture of resigned and stunning. The thing is it feels long now - at a 110 minutes - it's all very overwrought and stiff upper lip. It's regarded as a classic, but I struggle to give it a 6/10 now.

Castle in the Sky

There is a glaring omission to our Marvel viewing (actually two, but...). We have never watched the two Netflix The Punisher series. The reason is simple, I've never rated the character and after watching all of the dreadful films, the idea of watching 26 episodes of a TV show just didn't appeal (I've never seen the second season of Iron Fist, but that is understandable given how shit the first one was). However with Frank Castle seemingly going to play an important part in Daredevil Born Again, I thought it was time to watch the Punisher's adventures especially as the guy who wrote the Netflix series is also the guy who developed and wrote lots of Born Again. It is relatively slow, but absolutely hardwired with violence. It was like all the Netflix Marvel shows were just warm-ups for this and you can see how the violence in Born Again is of the same ilk. It's much better than I thought it would be.

This Is NOT the End

I'll be watching the third season of Severance on my own. The wife declared assuredly that if it's renewed for a third season I could watch it on my own. She didn't know at this point that a third series was going to happen; I think if she knew this she wouldn't change her mind... This season finale seemed to tie up the entire story without really doing anything at all. A third of this finale was taken up with Mark S and Mark Scout having an existential discussion about their own specific roles in this story, via a video camera. Scout wants his wife back, S wants his life - his own life - not to stop. If Severance has a reputation for being unfathomable then this was it at its finest. 75 minutes of running to stand still as Marks S and Scout conspire to rescue Gemma, while Helly and Dylan ensure that Milchick is tied up and while this is happening Egan and whoever the scientist in the little square room watching the monitors are going ape shit with cryptic exclamations. Every time I thought I might know what's happening it didn't happen and in many ways, because of the bizarre existentialism of the entire idea you could stop watching now and technically say this story ended with many loose ends of things that were perhaps never meant to be known. There is a hint that what happened in this finale might be a really really bad thing for every one and there's a chilling 'You'll kill them all!' exclamation that suggests Lumon might not be the real bad guys, even if they are all bat shit crazy.

What's Up Next?

Only Dope Thief and Daredevil Born Again are current at the moment and what with it being the middle of March I expect TV will remain thin on the ground for a while - it's just that time of the year. There's a dearth of films at the moment as well, or at least there has been.  As usual what I watch is what you will get...

My Cultural Life - A Marvellous Week?

What's Up?

How mad is this world? Despite having a huge amount of people hating him, Elon Musk still commands a massive following amongst idiots and arseholes in the world, who think this vile monstrosity of a billionaire is somehow above the law. Yet Welsh actor Michael Sheen - a man with considerably less wealth than the arsehole from South Africa (where Musk was born, into an apartheid supporting family) - is being castigated on social media for helping poor people and paying off the debts of neighbours and strangers. He's apparently doing it for the fame and to emphasise his 'woke' agenda...

How awful is a branch of humanity becoming? My guess is he's getting this backlash because he didn't personally help the people attacking him; but their blind admiration of Musk, who is responsible for thousands of people being kicked out of their jobs in the USA is the next Jesus... Fuck me, the 6th extinction can't come soon enough...

Marvel's Endgame

Having watched Infinity War it seemed apt to follow it up with the film that basically destroyed the MCU. The jumping off point. The movie that I struggle not to blub over at THREE different parts of this three hour epic and all because of Robert Downey Jr. - his homecoming from space; his moment with the resurrected Peter Parker and not his death but his last message that ends with 'I love you 3000' - they get me every time and this was the third time I've watched a film that I love and despise in equal measure. I love it because it is the ultimate comic book movie; the star spangled team-up to end all team ups. The deaths of major characters (although amazingly only one dies in the grand finale). Yet, it's the time travel that ruins it for me; not the actual travelling back in time, but the way it essentially plays footloose with the idea; how it basically invents its own rules to suit the story/conclusion. 

Like Infinity War if you haven't seen this (largest grossing movie of all time) then you're never likely to. It's the sequel to that aforementioned Infinity film and essentially follows the remaining heroes as they discover that time travel is a possibility and then turn it into a reality to try and bring back the half of the universe that Thanos finger clicked out of existence. There are obviously all manner of flaws in the idea; parts of it that shouldn't have happened - such as the comedy Ant-Man initial time travel experiments and his strange encounter with the Hulk in the café. Plus there are the bits of plot that seemed rushed rather than thought out; you have the best brains in the world planning who is going to do what, yet Nebula knows what happens on Vormir (to Gamora) but they still send Clint and Natasha there? She also must have known that there was a chance that sending her anywhere that her past self inhabited might have been a bad move. Or the fact that because they can time travel they didn't think to arrive at their intended destinations at an earlier time when there wasn't an intergalactic war just finishing or when something is about to kick off, but I'm just nit-picking now... 

I have written at least two blogs pointing out the incongruities of the plot; how Bruce Banner must have told Steve Rogers that any variation from the plan might result in the creation of alternate timelines - that he promised the Ancient One wouldn't happen - but Cap failed to listen to him, which is just so out of character for the First Avenger. The problem I have is it needs to be treated like a giant popcorn movie, one where you disengage your brain and cheer on things like Captain Marvel's deus ex machina moment or Captain America wielding Mjolnir like a pro, but being an aficionado of time travel movies (for untold time loops now) I simply can't get past the problems I have with it to fully declare it the greatest movie ever made. In fact, my problems with it and the repercussions for the entire franchise means that I can only give it an 8/10. If I could lose these problems and put aside the things that bother the shit out of me I'd almost consider it a 10/10 movie, but I simply can't. Therefore after three more long paragraphs about a film that I love and hate, let's move on to other things...

Leader of the Red World

Once upon a time a new MCU film would warrant it's own standalone blog entry. It would be a big splashy affair with me waxing lyrically about either how good the film was or how good they once were. Now, it gets relegated to following Endgame's third watch. However, despite hearing much about Captain America: Brave New World since its release and knowing all kinds of worrying shit about how it was finished in late 2022, underwent several rewrites and re-shoots, got delayed time and again, it actually wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. I suppose its biggest problem is that it's essentially part sequel to the Falcon and the Winter Soldier TV series and if you didn't see that at least one of the major players in this will mean nothing to you at all. It also serves as a sort of micro-sequel to The Incredible Hulk and a kind of sequel to The Eternals because it spends time tying up, or reinvigorating, old loose ends...

The chief antagonist is Samuel Sterns - aka The Leader - who, when we last saw him, was contaminated by Bruce Banner's blood near the end of the aforementioned Incredible Hulk (made in 2008 by Universal but co-opted into the MCU by virtue of tagging a couple of extra scenes and an epilogue onto it). Sterns, it seems, was actually captured by Thaddeus Ross (now POTUS and played by Harrison Ford) and held captive for 16 years, despite there never really being much of a hint that Ross knew of the guy's existence. I mean, I'm sure he did, but he also didn't... Also in this is Celestial Island, situated in the Indian Ocean, the remains of the Celestial who was killed by the Eternals at the conclusion of that generally awful MCU movie that is likely never to be revisited. It also works as a sequel to Sam Wilson (and Bucky Barnes) TV show where a 1950s black Captain America replacement was introduced with a slightly implausible reason for his creation.

Also in this movie is Sidewinder, an ex-military rogue agent who, despite having no powers, manages to constantly run rings round the US armed forces. Played by Giancarlo Esposito, this is a character that amazingly is both underused and quite irrelevant at the same time. There's a cameo from Sebastian Stan as Bucky - who is apparently running for congress (despite being an enemy of the USA for a long time and the cause of a huge explosion and the deaths of many in Captain America: Civil War) and Shira Haas as Ruth Bat-Serif, aka Silver Sable, although there was nothing silver about her and you got the impression that a lot of her ended up on the cutting room floor. The thing is after all that scene-setting, I'll bet you're wondering if it was any good? Well, the answer to that is yes, as recent MCU films go this wasn't bad at all. It felt like it should have been longer with a bit more back story and info for newcomers, but Anthony Mackie isn't bad as the new Cap and Danny Ramirez is exactly what you'd expect for the new Falcon. The thing rattled along at a cracking pace and despite the unusual end of Thunderbolt Ross's career and the strangely muted conclusions to both the entangled stories it wasn't bad at all - even if it did feel like an extended TV show at times. It did, however, feel like it was tying up loose ends while sowing some seeds about the future. There was a slightly contrived feel to it, but given the post-production nightmares the movie has been through that's to be expected. In the end I'm giving it a generous 7/10.

Back Home Again

You might be starting to notice a theme about this week's televisual entertainment. Three days into my weekly round-up and the third Marvel film on the trot. This time round it's the first MCU/Sony Spidey film, Spider-Man: Homecoming with Tom Holland as the webslinger (in actually his second outing) and what is, in my never humble opinion, the best of the Spider trilogy, because it's the most honest and feels like it's exactly what it wanted to be, a movie about a teenager with superpowers. I've never been a huge fan of Spider-Man; not quite in the league of my general disdain for Batman (we're talking comics here), but I've never really enjoyed any of the earlier films, although I did have a soft spot for Amazing Spider-Man 2, but that might have just been because of the closing scene. This however, with it's added Tony Stark and Happy Hogan, just felt like a proper fun feature with a genuinely interesting cast of villains - utilising existing MCU mythology. Plus, look out for a couple of brilliant cameos from Chris Evans as Captain America, especially the end credit scene, which is probably the best end credit scene ever done.

The idea was clear, they weren't going to do the whole origin thing again; there was no mention of an uncle Ben, May (Marissa Tomei) is a hot-bordering-middle-aged woman - possibly even a 'spinster' and his supporting crew would reflect New York rather than the rather white feel the comics had for a long time. It starts brilliantly with Peter being recruited by Tony Stark (RDjr) to help with the 'battle of the Avengers' at JFK from Civil War and Pete's recording everything on his phone. His origin is explained in an almost throwaway scene with Ned Leeds and he's still the nerd at school but maybe not held in the same kind of contempt he was in the 60s comic books. There's a clever nod to Betty Brant (his first comics girlfriend), while old Spidey villain the Vulture (Michael Keaton) is updated into the 21st century using technology stolen from the Chitauri wreckage, after the battle of New York in the first Avengers film. It's quite simply just a great movie with a lot going for it, lots of good humour, action sequences that are original and a pay off that is a little like the first Iron Man film, in that it doesn't need to be world threatening, just hard hitting enough to make it important. It is absolutely worth an 8/10.

Reputable Gangster

There's an all-star cast in Sam Mendes's Road to Perdition, everybody from Tom Hanks, Paul Newman, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Daniel Craig, Jude Law to name but a few. It also features Tyler Hoechlin - the kid who would grow up to play Superman, in the most recent TV series featuring the Man of Steel. This is also based on a comicbook, but you would be hard pressed to imagine that. Hanks - the almost adopted son of Newman - is an enforcer along with Craig - Newman's actual son - doing a job to deal with a problem for the mob, but Craig goes rogue and Hanks son - Hoechlin - witnesses it. This creates a political problem for mob boss Newman, so he puts a hit out on Hanks' Michael and his son. However it goes wrong and the wrong people die, forcing Newman into backtracking on his word and offering Hanks and son a way out. The problem is Hanks's Michael Sullivan only wants revenge. It's a really well made film and looks fantastic, but it wasn't really gripping and ultimately it's a grim film with little happening in it to make you feel anything but depressed. It's entertaining, but I imagine a lot of people struggled to like it. 6/10.

Statues?

The Netflix film Don't Move came out last year and was panned by many reviewers; even Netflix viewers stayed away from it. It seems there was something about this psychological horror movie that people didn't like. Perhaps it was Finn Wittrock, the antagonist of the story? Almost from his first scene he just gets on your nerves, but that's a deliberate thing; the guy is, after all, a psychopath with a penchant for drugging women - with a paralysing agent - and then, presumably, having his wicked way with them before killing them and dumping their bodies. The thing is he chooses Kelsey Asbille as his next victim, a woman who was on the verge of killing herself anyhow, so it was bound to go wrong. Asbille plays Iris, a woman whose son died in the park she's about to end it all in, that is until Wittrock turns up, spins his own sad story and basically persuades Iris to live another day. That was the moment when the suicidal woman becomes a potential murder victim...

Iris has 20 minutes before the drug injected into her will completely paralyse her, she does everything she can to evade the man she's already caused a lot of damage to and even gets the feeling of hope when things seemingly start to sway in her favour; but a lot of the plot devices left dangling around are false paths of hope. This is a short film, it weighs in at about 88 minutes, most of it was filmed in Bulgaria and there is an element of micro budget about it, but despite some slightly implausible plots devices and events, it wasn't that bad and filled a hole in what would otherwise have been a quiet night. No, it wasn't brilliant, but it wasn't any worse than a 6/10.

Tiger, Tiger, Burning Bright

The law firm procedural aspect of Daredevil: Born Again is the main thing going on in the third episode as Matt tries to get Hector Ayala off of his cop killing frame up. This episode is light on action but heavy on misdirection as we're left on a knife edge as the court decides whether Ayala is a cold blooded killer or if he really was helping a bystander from being beaten - by two undercover police officers. Another misdirection is whether Wilson Fisk really is trying to go straight. There really does seem to be a desire for him to be regarded as a clean politician rather than be linked to his criminal past; however, his wife Vanessa seems to have rather taken to the criminal life and Wilson might be involved in a power struggle he didn't see coming. There's also suggestions that for all of his wish to be a reformed man, his past is more than capable of catching up with him.

One thing I have noticed about this series, that's how little Marvel or Disney for that matter has given away about who is in it and how often they appear. It's clear this is a Matt Murdoch and Wilson Fisk series and the two will undoubtedly face off again before it's all concluded, but who are going to be the real supporting characters here? Margarita Levieva's Heather Glenn is still nothing more than a councillor (of a different kind) who is having a relationship with Matt but also Wilson's marriage guidance expert. We know there's going to be some appearances from Foggy later in the series, but the presumption is these will be in flashback and have we seen the last of Karen Page - Deborah Woll was in the opening two episodes, but there doesn't appear to be much scope for her reappearance? Oh and what role does Frank Castle have in all of this, because we know he's waiting in the wings?

What A State

About a decade ago I either found or was directed to Simon Stalenhag and had my mind blown somewhat. His truly unusual dystopian images about a future that has obviously gone wrong is actually about an alternate past that has also gone very wrong. About a world where gaudy robots exist side by side with humans and ultimately die by their sides as well. One of his first books was The Electric State and when I saw that the Russo Brothers were bringing it to the 'small' screen on Netflix I was intrigued (this is also the third Russo film we've watched this week and they haven't made that many). Less intrigued by Millie Bobby Brown and a little concerned about Chris Pratt in a dodgy wig, but I was prepared to see where this was going to go. Quite remarkably, despite being a film that looked and felt like it should have been a huge pile steaming excrement, The Electric State has proved to be quite a solid movie. I mean, it wasn't bad and that surprises me because I kept expecting it to turn into a heap of shite, but it didn't.

Brown plays a teenage girl who - on the eve of war against the robots - loses her parents and her brother in a car crash. She eventually recovers but lurches from one foster family to another until one day an illegal robot contacts her and claims to be her brother inside the body of a Cosmo Robot. One thing leads to another and once she's got proof she goes in search of the man who can give her the answers she needs; that's Ke Huy Quan - the man who told Brown her family had perished. With help from Pratt and his robot sidekick Herm (Anthony Mackie), they travel across the robot zone and try to get the answers they need, while being tracked by Giovanni Esposito's robot hunter. The man responsible for all this unnecessary robotic tension is Stanley Tucci who has reasons for all the secrecy. Everything about this feature screamed 'load of dung' but in the end it was surprisingly strange enough to actually work. The special effects were excellent and the supporting cast more than made up for Brown's inability to act her way out of a slug's slime trail... I'm going for a 7/10 (but I might give it a 3/10 next time I watch it, who knows?).

Subterfuge

Right, I'm now of the opinion that Severance might actually finish next week and we'll get enough explanations to keep us satisfied but lots of loose ends to keep us thinking about it...

This contains some spoilers.

Everything appears to be falling apart just as Lumon has reached the 96% completion of whatever 'Cold Harbor' is going to be. The management want Mark S back in the office, but he's gone AWOL with his sister and the always sinister Harmony Kobel. They appear to be planning something to get Mark into the building and find his 'dead' wife. Will we find out what makes Mark Scout so essential? Meanwhile Dylan's Innie and his Outie wife are having an affair that leads Dylan to resign his Innie from Lumon - which they allow quickly and without fuss (suggesting Dylan was only important as part of Mark S's team). Irving is given a one-way train ticket to get as far away from Lumon and Christopher Walken as possible and Melchick gets really arsey with Drummond. Meanwhile Miss Huang is transferred; Keir Egan is on the move and Helly R (or is that E?) has decided that she's going to do something serious. It certainly seems to be heading for an actual finish; characters moved away; others no longer pertinent and a series that has been so... detached at times without ever being very much like the first series at all. It's been remarkable really and if we were to be analytical about this, Severance makes little or no sense and has a strange and difficult narrative that is designed to leave you puzzled. It will remain this way, even if we get a resolution to Mark and Gemma's story.

What's Up Next?

More endings and beginnings. Some middle bits and films. You (don't) pay your money, so you never know - really - what's coming...