My Cultural Life - The God of Unfairness

What's Up?

The first proper week after the festivities always feels a little strange. I saw a meme about how this week is a little like waking up and wondering who you are and why you're here. I think, and I say this from presumption rather than experience, that after two weeks of limbo, getting back on the horse can be a little disorienting. You become accustomed to the fact you've had two weeks of your life disrupted by events you expect will be different (every bleedin' year) but tend to be the same. Like repeating the same thing hoping for a different outcome.

I'm still getting over this virus I had after Christmas. It's my thing; taking longer to recover from things that knock me off my feet than the thing itself. However, I should be really grateful because from what I've heard I was lucky to just get a 'cold', there have been people out there catching all kinds of nasty shit, so I suppose my lack of being sociable saves me from getting shit that might fuck me up even worse. The good news is that at the time of writing this, I am feeling more human again.

I started watching season two of Shrinking, but you won't see a review of it until I've seen all 12 episodes - because I'm not going to do the reviewing things as I watch them thing because it simply means I do more unnecessary writing. I made this point last week or maybe I didn't, but I need a degree of discipline in my format and telling you about the first episode of season two in a general sense means when I watch episodes two, three, four and five over the coming week I will just go back and rewrite, reword or reassemble existing words in a different way, when I can just write it once, when I'm finished...

Pilgrimage

You may recall a few months ago I mentioned that I'd fallen down a West Wing Tube of You rabbit hole, ending up watching literally hours of clips from one of the greatest TV series of all time. During these few weeks I heard about a film that Martin Sheen made in 2010; something his son Emilio Estevez wrote, produced and directed (he also appears in it as well), which on the face of it looked like something I wouldn't go near. The thing was I watched some clips of it and I got this feeling that maybe I should watch it. I don't know why, because a film about an aged optometrist travelling to the south of France to identify his dead son's remains and then ending up completing the journey his son was supposed to make, sounded like something that should appear on the Bible Network or possibly sponsored by one of the major religions, especially as the journey was the Camino de Santiago - the way of St James. The thing was it has sat on the Flash Drive of Doom for over three months and every so often I think, "Shall I watch this?" 

The Way is absolutely fucking glorious. It is an utterly wonderful, beautiful and emotional movie. It is one of the loveliest and saddest films I have seen in many years and it might be because I'm getting old, but I was engrossed from almost the moment it started until the very end when, part of me, wanted it to carry on for at least another hour. Daniel Avery quit his doctorate to go and travel the world; the first thing he wanted to do was walk the Camino de Santiago between France and Spain, but literally a day into his walk - which can take months - he fell victim to bad weather and died. Dr Thomas Avery, his father, a widower, receives the bad news from a French police officer while he's on the golf course with his country club friends. From that point on, it's about Tom reconnecting with his dead son by doing the thing Daniel wanted to do; so Tom walks The Way and stops at every important point to scatter some of his only child's ashes.

Along the way he meets Yorick van Wageningen's Joost - a Dutchman who is doing The Way for reasons which may or may not be truthful. Joost is a pot smoking party animal who wants to lose weight for his brother's wedding, so he can get into an old suit. Joost is fucking excellent and you'll love him within five minutes. Tom and Joost meet Sarah - Deborah Kara Unger - who is doing the walk so she can quit smoking (but you can guess this isn't the real reason) and these three eventually team up with Jack - James Nesbitt - a travel writer with a block who is all front. To say they hit it off would be a lie; they all have their reasons for being there and those reasons mean they walk together, but it's a long time before they become friends, but they're on The Way for the long haul.

I loved this movie. It was a simple tale about truth and commitment; a story about love and loss. It was sumptuously filmed with some great and colourful characters, some genuine moments of the sense that people can love each other regardless of their beliefs or their pasts. It transcends everything and plays out in a spiritual way that's dotted with vibrant and fantastic supporting actors. It's emotional, funny, poignant, sad and one of the best things I have seen in a long time, but I think I already said that. It's not often I will ever award a 10/10 but The Way almost deserves an 11.

This song was on the soundtrack - https://youtu.be/OOgpT5rEKIU?si=Wt_qLwdybjRhDEbh - but the entire soundtrack was great (apart from the Coldplay song). 

Black & White Lives Matter

Sometimes a film really does have an all-star cast, yet despite this we had never watched A Time To Kill. I don't really know why, I mean, it's a Matthew McConaughey movie and we literally have never seen him in anything we haven't enjoyed. Why this has Sandra Bullock as the lead in the credits must have been a bit of a wrench for McConaughey because this is his film, even if it also has Samuel L Jackson, Kevin Spacey, Donald and Kiefer Sutherland, Brenda Fricker, Oliver Platt, Ashley Judd, M Emmett Walsh, Charles Dutton, Patrick McGoohan and Kurtwood Smith. He commands it from the moment he first appears and it's probably the role that made people go 'Oh, this guy's good!'

It's a '90s set courtroom drama about a man who murders two child rapists after they rape and beat his daughter and leave her for dead. Against a backdrop of racial tension in the deep south, this is a nasty, unrelenting movie that is both compelling and difficult to watch. It paints a very good - but bleak - picture of what the USA was like and possibly what it is going to become again now that the Orange Cunt is back in charge. It does suffer from some 1990s filmmaking problems, but the story and execution is way more important; it's also - amazingly - directed by Joel Schumacher without his usual bombast. This is a quality film and you might catch it on Film4 or even All4. It deserves a big 8½/10.

Zombie Horse Shit

Oh Lupita Nyong'o... Did you need the money? Was it a case of a few weeks in Australia taking in the sun and sea, make a shit film and then return to being a promising actor? Because that's what Little Monsters felt like; an ill-advised excursion into zombie comedy horror that was really a redemption story, except the redemption should have come from me and anyone else by NOT watching this absolute heap of shit. It was mildly amusing in a really annoying way for the opening ten minutes - long before the zombies arrived - with Alexander England playing a complete arsehole who just annoys everyone he's near because of his selfish whiny nature. Then there's a zombie outbreak and a quiet corner of Australia is turned into the most boring zombie apocalypse I have ever seen. This was 28 Days Later on mogadon, the Walking Dead performed by somnambulists; it was simply awful. Bad special effects, bad acting - even from Josh Gadd, who is so good in Wolf Like Me, and a film that was not funny, nor scary or even slightly jeopardous. Why was this made? Who greenlit this gobsmackingly woeful excuse for a film? 2/10

Somebody

If Little Monsters was a trashy 'monster' movie, then Nobody was a trashy action thriller. The big difference - other than being different genres - is that Nobody didn't take itself seriously even if it was a brutal and violent movie. Bob Odenkirk - about as far removed from Saul Goodman as you could imagine - plays mild-mannered Hutch Mansell, an accountant for his father-in-law's manufacturing company who also just happens to be a very handy man with anything that can be weaponised. He was what covert ops people called an 'auditor' - the last person anyone ever sees before things... stop. The idea of Odenkirk as an action hero is quite unlikely, which might be why this movie works so well. It really is just a slight story that spirals out of control because Hutch had an itch that needed to be scratched. The levels of 'revenge' he goes to to 'pay back' a Russian mafia boss are so good you want to punch the air at times and all because someone - unrelated - broke into his house and stole some money and a watch. Had this not happened, the rest of the film wouldn't have and it would have been a three minute film about a boring accountant in a loveless marriage with a son who has no respect for him and a young daughter that feels sorry for her daddy. It is very trashy; there's a number of plot holes in it, but they're so unimportant that you don't really care about them and there's an irreverence that makes this a feel good film with one of the highest body counts you will ever see in a contemporary movie. 6.5/10

Healthy?

Apparently, too much vitamin B6 has a detrimental effect on peoples' health. Don't get me wrong, I think being kept up to date with what is good or bad for you is a positive thing, but it's getting to the stage where I'm beginning to wonder how our ancestors managed to live for more than 25 minutes, let alone grow up, have families, leave legacies and eat whatever they could afford...

Canine Blues

The thing about Dog is that it's a simple story about a former soldier given the job of taking a dead veteran's dog back to his funeral in Southern California. The dog - a Belgian Malinois - worked with one man and now that man is dead the general belief is the dog goes to the funeral and then to an army base where she's going to be euthanised because no one else can work with the her. It's a road movie over five days and it's enjoyable, quite emotional and Channing Tatum is a bit of a plonker. The thing is, like the dog, he has no direction any more. He's not getting back in the army, despite his wishes and while the dog's journey might be a backdoor back into it by the time they get to the funeral there's always going to be one outcome. It's a good film, not a great one, but worth your while, especially if you like dogs. 6/10

No Entry

Matt Reeves is a great director. There's a sense that whether it's a blockbuster or an 'indie' take on something big, he's the go to guy at the moment. The Batman was a unique take on the DC mainstay, while his POTA reboot makes the original series look as bad as the 1970s TV series. He was also the guy who directed Cloverfield, the found-footage film that essentially kickstarted his career. The fella is just good at making films (and he's pretty good at producing films and TV as well) despite the fact he hasn't actually made that many. So, it was time to revisit his breakout movie; the remake of the Scandi horror flick Let the Right One In, rewritten and retitled Let Me In. Starring Chloe Grace Moretz, Kodi Smit-McFee, Richard Jenkins and Elias Koteas - as a detective on the trail of possibly a Satanist cult; this is a modern (although it's set in 1983) vampire story with a twist. It's like an indie film, but it's also like a psychological study. It's understated, yet really quite nasty. There's an icky feeling attached to it, without it ever feeling like it's crossing any lines and it's as disturbing as fuck. It examines all manner of themes - alienation, loneliness, domination, bullying and what indicators do you need to see that someone might be on the verge of becoming the next psychopath.

In many ways, it's not a patch on the original, but it doesn't try to be. It almost tries to be a companion piece, even if the stories are incredibly similar. It's also really noticeable that Carla Buono plays Smit-McFee's mother and while she appears numerous times, I don't think the viewer sees her face once. Although that might be allegorical in a way, because the adults in this film all could serve a purpose - like never naming a pet because you might one day have to eat it, I think Buono was never shown because once you see her face, she could become dinner. It was maybe not as good as I thought it was 15 years ago when it came out, but this downbeat and cerebral horror movie still deserves a 7/10.

Antisocial Media

A bit of preaching to the converted, but it seems that the world's richest people now want to rule the world. That plastic-faced lump of human waste Elon Musk is buying a lot with his right wing views, while the autistic wanker of the world, Mark Zuckerberg, has decided that fact checking is for 'libtards' and we're in for a proliferation of all kinds of bollocks that someone will think is true.

Couple the above with The Donald's desire to acquire both Greenland and Panama (and everybody said he wouldn't get involved in world politics) and we're heading for a period in mankind's history where maybe living in a quiet corner of Scotland (not that far from one of the Orange Shitler's golf courses) might have been a really sensible decision by me...

ET Bone Home

It has been 40 years since we last watched John Carpenter's Starman and considering this was made seven years after Close Encounters you would have thought it had been made ten years before it. This is the only time that a Carpenter film ever had an Oscar nomination for - Jeff Bridges in the Best Actor category - and while Bridges is adequate as the alien taking the form of a dead husband, it really is just a really naff feature. I wanted it to be as good as I remembered it being, but I think tastes have grown more sophisticated over the last four decades and while the subplot is about what the US army would do to an alien invader, the main thing about this is trying to get an alien to assimilate into humanity and the way humans think and feel. Karen Allen does a reasonably good job as the widow suddenly thrust into a strange and inexplicable situation where her dead husband is suddenly reincarnated, right in front of her in her own lounge, plus you know she's going to end up boffing the alien too. Meanwhile, Charles Martin Smith is admirable as the SETI scientist who, at least, understands that for an alien to come here then there's a chance its going to be considerably more advanced than us. The special effects are from 1984 and the USA is depicted as a collective group of arseholes - so nothing there has changed much (except it does the usual good job of showing that the poorer you are in the USA, the more human you become). It's also a movie that leaves so much open at the end it was almost like they expected to do a sequel. It feels as dated as its age and maybe if I'm still alive when I'm 102 I'll watch it again. 4/10

Wanchorman

It took me 20 years to watch Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy and the wait wasn't worth it. It's very silly. It has some genuine LOL moments - most of them courtesy of Steve Carell, who was by far and away the funniest person whenever he was on screen. I struggle to see why people think Will Ferrell is funny or even talented - he's like a poor man's Steve Martin; someone I also struggle to find funny... But what about the film? Well, it felt a little like that great Apple TV show The Morning Show but set in the early 1970s and written by a kid who likes fart gags. It was about the appointment of the first female news reporter for Channel 4 News in San Diego and it was childish nonsense. The 'story' was largely superficial and, yes, I know, it was supposed to be a silly comedy produced by Judd Apatow and directed by Adam McKay, a man whose films I usually love, but it felt like one long badly written sketch for SNL. However, I was slowly racking up the Marvel references made during the film - from an early Johnny Storm joke to a Thor nod at the end - so there was something... Plus there's a post credit cameo from Smokey and the Bandit 2 - which was ace i9n a post modern humour kind of way! I have the sequel to watch as well and the masochist in me will probably see it next week. 5/10

And Finally... I Lied

I started watching season two of Shrinking, but you won't see a review of it until I've seen all 12 episodes ... This was the first line of the third paragraph of this week's blog; you read it about ten minutes ago, at most. I lied, I need to talk about it, just briefly because there will probably be a proper review next week.

I remember this unexpectedly making my Top Ten TV shows of 2023. I also remember raving about it being excellent television. Season two - of which I am half way through watching - is even better than last year. It might be because I'm more familiar with the characters and feel a little more invested in it, but this story of three psychiatrists, their friends and patients is heavenly TV. It ticks every box; there isn't a dislikeable character in it and all of them are unique, well written, rounded and funny in their own ways. Harrison Ford is a revelation as the lead quack whose health is deteriorating because of Parkinson's disease and even the normally annoying Jason Segel is really good. The two best characters - if such things exist - are Christa Miller as the neurotic, self-obsessed next door neighbour Liz and the fantastic Jessica Williams as Gaby; one of the partners in the practice, who literally only has to open her mouth and you're laughing; she is sexy, cool, geeky and I do apologise, but I would... Stay tuned. 

What's Up Next?

Well, Severance is back this coming week and I expect it will be as strange and mysterious as the first season... However, this is a TV show that needs to be finite and given the huge success it was for Apple TV+ I get the horrible feeling that instead of a season of explanations, we're going to end up being mired in new characters and a lot of obfuscation regarding whether it moves forward or not. I hope I'm wrong, but it was left at such a point in the four main characters' lives that to ignore that might be seen as taking the piss. I hope I'm not disappointed. That said, like Shrinking I might (have to) wait for all the episodes to drop before watching it because we watched it as a box set the first time around and one suspects watching it as a weekly might lose some of its mystique and impact.

The Flash Drive of Doom is full of things we either don't want to watch again, yet, or newer stuff that have been sitting on it for a while that simply do not float our collective boats, at the moment. Most of the film reviews this week are from things we recorded off of Film4.

I don't remember a start of a year that has been so devoid of interesting TV. The BBC has been promoting the hell out of The Traitors, a reality TV show that we find about as appealing as having to spend the day sitting in a bath full of someone else's runny shit. The coming weeks also have the return of shite like Dragon's Den and that wanker Alan Sugar in The Apprentice - both fucking awful TV shows that we have never watched a single minute of. That said, we have never watched an episode of Strictly Come Dancing nor have we ever succumbed to watching anything with the words 'Reality' and 'TV' in. I find it wasteful and destructive to watch TV that highlights the worst in human beings; I mean most people are just worthless cunts at the best of times, so why subject myself to them when I could be doing something interesting like self-harming...

Next week will be whatever next week brings.  

My Cultural Life - New Year, Newish Look

Welcome to a new blog. A bit like the old blog but slightly different in that this won't just be about films and TV, it will also be about music, books and my life, because I expect 2025 will be different - well, it's more hope than expectation, but I'll be 63 in April and I've got to do more than just sit in front of the TV and then tell you about it while trying not to spoil things for those of you who might not have seen what I was watching...

Christmas Repeat

Facebook memories has become a useful tool in many ways, especially around things like birthdays and, of course, Christmas and the New Year. I've been doing Facebook for 17 years in June and that's longer than I want to think about - I mean, it still feels newish.

What these memories also do is show me how bloody often I've been ill over the holidays. This was our 8th Scottish Christmas/Hogmanay and it was also the fourth time one or both of us have been ill. Fortunately (if that is the right word), it was only me this time and it waited until December 28 before it hit me. What had been a teensy sniffle on the 23rd, 24th and 25th, got a bit more snotty on Boxing Day and the 27th and then whatever virus I'd managed to catch took hold and by New Year's Eve I'd broken out the emergency antibiotics and steroids.

A cold will probably be the death of me. In many ways it was the death of my mum; it was a cold that made the previous chain of events (my dad's non-fatal heart attack and the subsequent days that followed) a concoction of imminent death. Of course, we didn't know this at the time, but less than 3 weeks after my dad came out of hospital, my mum was in it and dying. When I was diagnosed with COPD, the doctor - a lovely woman called Helen Mead - said as I was leaving her office, "Oh and try not to get any colds; colds are bad for you." I've been told by a number of health professionals since that it was very unprofessional of her to say this, but I think it was her way of saying that at some point in the future a cold will be my undoing.

Jeez, this is maudlin, you're probably thinking? The thing is mum died when she was 64 and I'm zeroing in on that number and with COPD, my anxiety issues, propensity to get viruses and lack of any discernible social life - since COVID - I made a decision at the end of November to do stuff. So I signed up to a Tai Chi class; I have gotten involved in helping the newly acquired community buy out of the pub (and will work there for free if they'll have me - at least until they're up and running) and I have a bunch of other things on a 2025 list of things I need to do to get me back being the Phil I once was. It might be a resolution I screw up, but I've never been one for New Year change, so why not start now?

So this new blog is going to be more than just what I watch on the Smart TV in the living room. It might not seem that different for a while, but I have things to read, to listen to and to get involved with that I hope will be more interesting than weekly updates of what I think of a 10 year old TV series I've just got around to watching. That said, we ended 2024 with something altogether better than I expected...

Creep

What a simply superb movie Heretic is. Who would have thought that a) a film about two Mormon missionaries on a recruitment drive and b) Hugh Grant being Hugh Grant in a totally scary way, could be such a barnstormer of a feature? Not me for starters. I'd had this for a couple of months and I kept putting it off, preferring to watch anything rather than see if all the critics were right. They were. Heretic is a modern horror classic because like any really good horror film, it's totally plausible. Grant plays Mr Reed, a man who lives in a lovely - very British looking - house, who has expressed interest in talking to the Church of the Latter Day Saints, so he is visited by two young and idealistic young women. The moment they walk into his house it looks like a bad idea and if you have any idea what the film is about then you're looking at all the clues and thinking exactly what you're supposed to be thinking.

For a movie that is mainly set in Reed's living room, parlour and cellar, it pretty much whizzes along and about a third of the way through any atheists out there will be totally enjoying Hugh Grant's speeches about religion; by which time all the two women want is to leave - something both of them now realise isn't going to happen. This is a clever, nasty and quite shocking feature and was the perfect way to end 2024 - we watched it NYE - if you haven't seen it, then I recommend you do and if I had to give it a rating - my rating rather than an IMDB one - then I'd give it a solid 8/10.

There is also a weird connection between The Hollies, Radiohead and Lana Del Rey, but you'll need to see it to understand it.

Invisible Touch?

Unlike many old films I review, I'd never seen the 2000 adaptation of Brett Easton Ellis's American Psycho and after finally watching it I'm glad I'd never watched it and wish it had stayed that way. It's a very confusing film that made little sense to me until about the halfway mark when I started to realise that everything in it was going on in his head. Now if that's a spoiler then tough because this film is a quarter of a century old and if you haven't seen it by now then you're never going to. Possibly the funniest moment in this darkly comic movie was Bale discussing his love of Genesis (the pop iteration of the prog band) and his admiration for Phil Collins, which, if nothing else, proved categorically that this was indeed a comedy. What was real, what wasn't? Was Christian Bale actually playing someone called Patrick Bateman or was his name Davies? In the end it made little sense and I felt it was badly acted - apart from Bale - and was mindblowingly bad. I rate this a 3/10 and a recommendation to watch something more interesting instead.

Comanche Run

If you want to be honest, when a franchise as big as this one boasts the original, with Arnold Schwarzenegger, as the best of the bunch then any discerning movie goer would question whether watching any of the sequels is worth the time and effort. However, Prey the 2022 prequel to Arnie's Predator is an incredibly well done, back-to-basics, film that is worth your time, even if you don't like sci-fi films with ugly brutish monsters as the main antagonist. This is set in North America in 1791 and is all about Amber Midthunder as Naru, a woman who wants to be a warrior but isn't taken seriously by her elders and 'betters'. All of her attempts to prove herself either fail or fail spectacularly; that is until a Predator arrives on her peoples' reservation and starts hacking the heads off its prey.   

This is an excellent addition to the franchise, with possibly only Adrien Brody's 2010 sequel Predators also worth your time and effort. Midthunder is excellent (as is her dog) and this absolutely is a full on, no time to rest, thriller with nods to the original film as well as some ingenious ideas. It deserves a solid 7/10 and a thumbs up from me if you've never seen it. Don't be put off by the sci-fi monster premise; this is about emancipation as much as it's about alien creatures with advanced weaponry for the 18th century.

Beach Bums

The documentary about the history of The Beach Boys has been floating around my hard drive for over six months. It's something I've wanted to watch but never got around to it, so on New Year's Day afternoon, we settled down and watched the film that is currently available on Disney+. It's very comprehensive up to a point and spends best part of two hours looking at the period between 1961 when the Wilsons' decided to start a band and goes up to the mid 1970s when the band had fallen into decline and were no longer the superstars they had been. While it does a really good job of telling the story of their success and the savant genius that Brian Wilson was, it skirts over issues in their later life and careers that might have made this an even more enjoyable (and truthful) documentary. 

I suppose this was a celebration so the darker moments in the band's career were overlooked or simply airbrushed out. There was no mention of Dennis Wilson's ostracization and drug struggles or his death which was accidental but could have been suicide. Neither was there any meaningful mention of Carl Wilson's struggle with cancer before he died in the late 1990s. The Mike Love controversy was swept over briefly, with no real mention of the huge rift that formed between Love and his cousin Brian Wilson, which led to the two not speaking for years after Love - rightly - sued for loss of royalties. The problem was he sued Brian and it wasn't really Brian's fault his father was a complete cunt.

I learned a lot of things that I never knew, like Glen Campbell was a member of the band for a while in the 60s or that effectively there were two Beach Boys - the studio band and the touring one, because Wilson - who is clearly on the spectrum - kept having breakdowns when he went on tour, so stayed in the studio composing all their hits with Phil Spector's session band The Wrecking Crew. Anyhow, if you want to have a nostalgic two hours of songs we all know and many of us grew up with then this is worth your while. I give it a wobbly 6.5/10.

Pot Sounds?

Honestly, this is what I should do more with this blog... Much of the focus of the Beach Boys documentary was on Pet Sounds, the groundbreaking (really?) album which many believe was the best thing the Californian band ever created [read: Brian Wilson]. So after watching the documentary, I gave the album a couple of listens to. This is what I think... 

The documentary has Al Jardine claiming he played the album to Lennon and McCartney and they were so blown away they listened to it three times. This may well have been the case, but one suspects because of the rivalry built up either side of the Atlantic by the people associated to the bands, Lennon and McCartney wanted to see what they're rivals were up to next and maybe they were impressed by it or maybe they thought, "If this is the best Wilson can do then lets go into the studio and blow him away!" Pet Sounds is a Beach Boys album. It has less surfs up type songs and a few things - God Only Knows and Wouldn't It Be Nice especially - that showed they were capable of doing something other than derivative pop. It doesn't float my boat and I like the band's hit singles - but that's about as far as it goes. This has some excellent hits on it and a bunch of meh other tracks that didn't - for me - show the genius of Brian Wilson. Yes, as an arranger and producer he was good, but probably with the exception of Good Vibrations (which wasn't on this album) there hasn't been anything really innovative and even that classic single is still the Beach Boys. Considering they pretty much went into decline after this album, one wonders if people view this with rose tinted glasses rather than with a serious critical hat on. It's okay, but if I hadn't already owned it, I wouldn't go and buy it.

Chase Me

The wife is a big fan of The Chase, but it's because she's a quiz fan more than anything else. I am also a quiz fan - obs - but this is a show that infuriates me (much like many afternoon quiz shows). Why does it infuriate me? Well, for two reasons. The first is the incredibly stupid people who appear on it. Do these people understand that they're on a quiz show so they need to have a rudimentary understanding of general knowledge? And secondly, why do people go on this show to take the low offer? I mean, you get an opportunity to go on a show, they're already highly unlikely to win the jackpot - I think it happens about once in every 12 shows - so you might as well take what you earned in the cash builder because taking the low offer is just an insult to your team mates.

I've always said if I went on show - which is as likely as me being the next Doctor Who - I'd probably get edited out for telling my team mates if they take the low offer I won't try in the final and they will be on their own with their limited general knowledge. I think it's just people who want to be on TV, getting their 10 minutes of fame and coming across as chicken shit wankers to the rest of the nation. Twats, all of them. 

Dick in a Vice

If a modern actor deserved high praise it's probably Christian Bale for his ability to transform himself for whatever role he's playing; from dodgy skinny boxers to Batman, Bale has been chameleon like in his career, but none of them are a patch on his Dick... I am of course talking about his Dick Cheney - former Vice President of the USA, as well as many other positions within Republican administrations - Chief of Staff and Defence Secretary to name but two. Bale's performance as Cheney in Adam McKay's Vice is quite remarkable and I'm still wondering if he simply put on a lot of weight or a fat suit, because whatever he did the make up department deserved an Oscar. But not just for him, also for Sam Rockwell, who I said just two weeks ago was at his best in The Way Way Back (which also starred Steve Carell, who in Vice plays Donald Rumsfeld), but was also pretty damned good in this. Rockwell was made to look so much like George W Bush that you literally needed to do a double take at times.

Vice is essentially a biopic of Cheney's life - because the man was so secretive much of this movie was conjecture and presumption, but you really get the impression that apart from some artistic licence this was probably what happened and points the finger squarely at the former VP for much of the mess the world is in today - the rise of the Right Wing, the proliferation of capitalism and all those wars that Halliburton has made so much money from - a company that Cheney was CEO of and may still have links. I have said for many years, like other people, that Halliburton is one of the corporations that run the world and this excellent, if not quite scary movie, goes a long way to corroborate that hypothesis. It was our first time watching this movie, another one which we should have watched much sooner than now. It's not the film of the week but it's pretty close and I give it a solid 7.5/10 - it could almost have been an 8 but the depressing nature of the truth got it downgraded by half a point.

Arthouse Thing

What do you get if you cross John Carpenter's The Thing with a David Cronenberg homage made by a French film 'auteur'? You get The Substance, a movie that seems to have really shaken up the film world - a body horror that really is about bodies and a performance from Demi Moore - considering she's 62 - that deserves a positive acknowledgment. She plays fading Hollywood star  Elizabeth Sparkle who hosts an aerobics slot on morning TV. It's not often a woman of Moore's age will wander around for most of a movie with no clothes on - although to be honest, for her age and with NATSO she's in pretty good shape - so all credit to her for doing this with the kind of confidence she showed in the early 1990s. 

In real terms this is a tough film to review without giving anything away or sounding sexist, but I suppose Coralie Fargeat's movie - which actually feels like French film - is about sexism, ageism and being left behind for younger, brighter things. Elizabeth Qualley plays Sue and her unique relationship with Moore is explored in a sinister and strangely addictive way. This is a violent, sexual and bleak feature with most of the dialogue being supplied by the other main actor, Denis Quaid - as both women's producer. It is, I suppose, quite a darkly comic turn, with some excellent, but stylised special effects. Did I enjoy it? Not really. I thought Moore was okay until her life started to fall apart - literally - and that's when she really showed that she is, at times, an exceptional actor. It's a cold and detached look at the decadence of fame and beauty and what people will do to hang on to these things. It has been highly praised in critical circles, but is a difficult movie to like, so I'll go down the middle and give it a firm, but saggy 5/10.

What's Up Next?

I'm still trying to decide what I'm going to do when we come to TV coming back. The plan is with Box Set releases then I'll review the entire series and when there's a big weekly show that returns then I'll see how I'll approach that when it happens. There will be stuff before hand but Severance is back in February and by then I should have got into some kind of groove.

So probably a selection of old and new films until the TV is back, with maybe some other stuff thrown in to mix it up a bit. As with last year, it's a wait and see thing! Ciao! 

  

Modern Culture: The End?

Whatever spoilers there are will be for things you shouldn't watch...

Kraven the Wanker

Here's the thing, had this not been a 'comicbook' film it might have been quite enjoyable, but then when you have to factor in the acting, the script, the special effects and the absolute load of horse wank it ended up being and nothing can save this film - and Sony's much-derided Spider-less-verse - from the fate all of it deserves. Why do they make these films? Or more importantly why do they allow these films to be made so badly? My plan was to watch the first 20 minutes and then wax lyrically about what an absolute steaming pile of lion shit it was, but like a bad car crash I watched it until the end, relishing every bad scene, poor bits of dialogue and hackneyed attempt to make it a worthy addition to the 'super' genre. Yeah, that's two hours of my life I'll never see again, but I've got the lurgy and I've been too unwell to moan about it. So much didn't make sense; I presume Sony employ people to watch the unreleased version and if they do how come no one spotted the two or three HUNDRED continuity and story errors. Huge swathes of this made no sense at all; the dialogue was, seemingly, written by an 8-year-old... Actually, that's a terrible insult to most 8-year-olds. For the love of God, no more, please. 

Time's Wonky Arrow

Our decision to watch old films when we could have been watching less old films continued with a visit to Gregory Hoblit's Frequency, his film after Fallen, which we watched a few months ago. This stars Denis Quaid and Jim Caviezel as father and son talking to each other across time via CB radio during massive solar storms over New York state. It's proper timey-wimey stuff with Caviezel first saving his father's life and then getting him to investigate a serial killer, unawares that everything the two do across time has a knock on effect - the Butterfly Effect - which takes place in real time. It's a great concept let down by implausible things happening that should not happen and wouldn't necessarily result in where the film's direction goes. It's a good film that is spoiled a little by the ending and even more by the ending's epilogue, which is about as optimistic and wishful thinking as you can imagine.

A bit of weird knowledge. Hoblit rose to fame working with Steven Bochco, first on over 100 episodes of Hill Street Blues and then 37 episodes of NYPD Blue - during an early scene in this film, much attention was focused on the TV, which was playing an episode of Hill Street with Mick Belcher.

Earth Blah Blah Blah

We were treated to two parts of Earth Abides before Christmas and the final part a couple of days before New Year. It suggests to me that they were trying to get it over and done with before 2025. The thing is this is US TV and those decisions will have been made months ago, so it probably just felt like that. This week more of the same happened. Ish survives his run in with a mountain lion - but we don't know how - and another three years whizz past. This little commune has been together best part of 20 years when they get invaded by their first bunch of dodgy people, led by Charlie, a charismatic wanker who bullies his way into getting what he wants and is followed by either sycophants or cowards. Stuff happens that forces the community into making tough decisions and with one episode to go I'm wondering if the future of mankind, after a pandemic, is to survive as long as it can without falling victim to itself or whatever lies in wait... 

The conclusion to this well made but ultimately flawed series finds tragedy and a way forward for those who survive the second coming of the flu. This was spoiled by an absolute lack of jeopardy but as I said to the wife, it's probably what would happen. It really has been the dullest, but in places extremely fascinating, TV show I've watched in a while...

Law and Order

I wanted our Christmas Night movie to be something to remember; something that has a good set of reviews and looks like a wise choice. It was clearly going to be the Jude Law and Nicholas Hoult white supremacist film The Order. Everything about it looked right - good cast, historical drama that's based on a true story and... The Guardian really liked it. I suppose I should end the year slipping back into old habits and taking that newspaper's recommendations as anything other than a warning to avoid. This was remarkably dull; even the 'exciting' bits were just meh. It tries to paint a picture that Neo-Nazis are humans as well, while simultaneously saying good people do stupid racist things. It just felt like a long anti-climax that looked good but was really difficult to like.

La Zzzz

Mortimer and Whitehouse: Gone Fishing Christmas 2024 was languid and snooze inducing. The boys went to France and I got the impression that it probably wasn't the best idea they've ever had. They caught some fish, talked about stuff and proved that maybe, sometimes, this is a TV show that has sometimes run its course. Half the show was without the dog Ted, he turned up and it became all about Ted. It's like sometimes they just haven't got much to make a show from and the amount of time spent on the - admittedly - very large carp suggested to me that there was a struggle to film enough useable material. More an addendum than a special. 

Dune and Dusted

The sixth and final episode of season one of Dune Prophecy came and went. Nothing was resolved; people died and everything was set up nicely for season two, which I won't be bothering with.

Dull and Dustier

What might have been the final part of James May and the Dull Men arrived just after Christmas and it was... dull. Not a lot was dealt with apart from chocolate and macaroni, which apparently has potential.

Who's Sorry Now

We didn't watch Doctor Who on Christmas Day, we watched it on Boxing Day and we weren't really looking forward to it. It's often when you least expect something to be any good that exceeds expectations and this might not have made a huge amount of sense - and old leaky eyes managed to cry yet again - but it was quite a lovely and quirky little tale of anger, loneliness and bringing a little bit of Joy to the World. I didn't know who Nichola Coughlin was, but I was impressed with the hotel receptionist - Stephanie de Whalley - and her undying love for the Doctor - a well worn path that never fails to be one of Doctor Who's most endearing traits. I enjoyed this. Like I said it struggled to make sense and there seemed to be some senseless deaths, but it was more than I expected and therefore more than we deserved.

Ghost of a Past

The last century is over 25 years ago now... The last time we watched Stir of Echoes was 25 years ago and it's not really a film that has aged well. It does paint this romanticised version of Chicago, the same way Shameless US did, where everybody parties in the yard all the time and everyone is friends with someone else. Kevin Bacon plays this borderline-arsehole telephone engineer who after getting hypnotised at a party starts seeing ghosts (just like his son, who didn't need to be hypnotised) and what follows is twisting whodunnit, which despite not having seen it for a quarter of a century we both remembered as soon as the reason for remembering came onto the screen. It's a little creepy, but in reality is feels as though it was an attempt to cash in on The Sixth Sense with a less creepy kid seeing the ghosts this time. It's not a bad film, but age hasn't been kind to it.

It's Only Christmas

The regular series of Only Connect has been replaced by a bunch of specials for this festive period. I know quite a few people who dislike this quiz show because of Victoria Coren-Mitchell rather than for any other reason. I've grown ambivalent about her over the last decade or so, but I do think she's quite amusing, if you like that kind of thing. This year's Christmas specials have been a mix of easy and 'bloody hell, these are supposed to be fun!' Old teams come back; you think you recognise them, but do you or is it just your quiz brain playing tricks on you? I get confused even when I see this year's competitors again because I can't remember them from the last time they appeared...

Shine On 

There's this possible apocryphal story about Stephen King getting excited about Mike Flanagan's adaptation of Dr Sleep until he learned that the studio putting up the money wanted it to not only be an adaptation of the then recent King novel, but also a direct sequel to Stanley Kubrick's divisive The Shining. This meant that Flanagan - a piss poor sell out of a director IMNHO - wrote the screenplay, directed and eventually edited his own version...

Dr Sleep, which stars Ewan McGregor and Rebecca Ferguson, isn't a bad film at all, at least until the last 30 minutes when it veers away from the book and into the territory that King hated so much he paid for and co-wrote his own TV adaptation of The Shining (with I believe his oft 90s collaborator Mick Farris). It has to be said that I loathe Kubrick's adaptation about as much as King, so I absolutely detested the last 30 minutes of this film. It literally threw away the last 100 or so pages of King's Dr Sleep novel and made up an ending to make the producers happy. The way it tied the two together, which, strangely, the follow up book doesn't really try to do, ruins a perfectly good story - but only if you've read the books. If you're a fan of the Kubrick film you'll be happy with the many nods back to the 1980 film. It also needs to be pointed out that this was Flanagan's Director's Cut of the film, so it cuts lots of Henry Thomas's mediocre Jack Nicholson impersonation and keeps the appearances of young Danny and his mother to a minimum - almost as if he was publicly apologising to King for fucking up his adaptation.

Don't get me wrong; it's a good film (I recall hating it much more when I saw it in 2019) and the three hour run time absolutely whizzes past. I'm just always going to have a problem with anything that wants to be associated with Kubrick's film. 

Goofy Goonies

I haven't seen The Goonies for probably 40 years. It's a noisy cacophony of a film with a lot of very silly things happening and is without a doubt a kids' movie. I remembered many people in it like Sean Astin, one of the Coreys and, of course, Ke Huy Kwan... But how many of you know or remembered that a young teenage Thanos was in it? Yes, Josh Brolin (son of James) was the hunk member of the team of kids searching for pirate treasure. He hasn't aged well...

Blah Blah Blah

And that is it. As I write this it's a little before noon on New Year's Eve. There's just over 12 hours - of yet another shit year - to go. I came down with a virus on the 28th and have been housebound since, coughing and sneezing and leaving all the dog work to the wife. 

I've also been in a real quandary for the last few weeks. I've even written a blog about it, which seemed like a good idea at the time but still remains half finished and will probably be deleted after I publish this... The thing is, I have to change my lifestyle a little in 2025. Health concerns (nothing serious, touch wood) mean that I need to get out more, find some hobbies and focus on new goals. I've taken up Tai Chi, which has been fun even if my fragile back hates it and I've decided that I'm going to have another go at writing a novel. I should just go back and rewrite one of the many I've 'finished' but this time it isn't about me, it's about... er... me. The process of writing a novel will give me some of the focus I need; the discipline to sit down and work on an idea rather than be waylaid by the internet, on-line golf games and getting angry at wankers on social media.

One of the side lines of this quandary has been what to do with my blogs. They are one of the few things in my life that give me a purpose, the problem I have with them is I think the blog has lost its purpose and has become a bit directionless. I know, how can a weekly TV and Film blog have lost its direction? I don't necessarily watch too much TV, but it does look like it. The blog has become a diary of my cultural life and that is quite sad because most of the culture I have is from the box in the lounge.

I've tried revamping the blog before and ended up going back to the tried and tested format. I want to continue with it, but do the people who read this (and there are quite a few of you) really want to see reviews of 40 year old films? In fact, do they want to see reviews of anything that's older than last year's Christmas presents? Retro reviews are one thing, but I'm not sure I really want to pad out my weekly blogs with my thoughts on a film that came out in 1977, let alone one that came out in 2017, and I'm sure my loyal readers don't either. 

So, next time you might see the same thing or you might see something a little different. I'm torn. I feel like I want to try something different, but what that different is I have no idea.

I will tell you that I'm kind of done with wishing people a Happy New Year because my experience of life, especially over the last 25 years is that it really doesn't get better and even if we have a reasonable year, there's always some shit that happens to take the shine off of it... Apart from the weather, the death of one of my best friends and the fact I'm now nearly 63, 2024 hasn't been very good at all. We live in a divided world and the future is anything but bright... 

So, in 2025 I hope no one you love dies or gets a horrible disease. I hope you remain solvent and don't want for anything. May you and your loved ones have a peaceful, caring and sharing year. You all get the amount of sex that you want and your orgasms are intense and not at all messy.

Now fuck off and do something useful.

Pop Culture - All I Want For Christmas...

Spoilers exist; maybe not so much here, but they do exist and they will get you...

Definitely NOT The Waltons

Christmas films, eh? So many of them get churned out now that it's an industry unto itself. Even Netflix has got in on the Hallmark act; as November becomes December you just get so much festive shit some of it's bound to stick to something other than the dog blanket. So when I saw a recommendation for The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, I was immediately unimpressed and scrolled on... Except, it had a remarkably high IMDB rating - 7.1 (at time of watching) as opposed to most Christmas films being between 4.8 and 6 - and the two positive reviews I read were by people who claim to be Christmas cynics. Was it worth giving it a go?

Well, The Best Christmas Pageant Ever is one of the best [new] Christmas films I have seen in well over 30 years. The thing about it though is it's really all about Christians, about the meaning of Christmas and how so many Christians are such utter selfish pricks and arseholes they don't deserve a joyous festival such as Yule. Christians have a massive propensity to be utter cunts; a most pious religion, with blinkered wankers coming out of every vestibule and pulpit. One of the reasons I dislike Christmas so much (and think it should be held every four years, like the Olympics, in a different country) is the way Christians have subverted it and all the other basic tenets of religion. Christians are fucking horrible, by and large, and this film goes a long way to proving this theory of mine by portraying many of the Christians in it as fucking arseholes...

The Herdman kids are the worst family ever. No one has ever seen their parents; they live in the shittiest part of town and the six of them are essentially feral. Beatrice Schneider (who was utterly fantastic and reminded me of a young Emma Kenney from Shameless US) is the oldest Herdman, Imogene - the leader of the rag tag band of trouble - and she decides that she and her siblings should be in the town's 75th Christmas Pageant - a 'living' nativity scene, with the kids playing different parts. Except this year, six of the parts will be taken up by Herdmans - Imogene as Mary, Ralph as Joseph, three other brothers as the Three Wise Men and the youngest Gladys as the Angel. Everybody, including the emergency director of the pageant thinks it's going to be a disaster, especially as the Herdmans only seem to be doing it for free food. The entire movie is narrated by Molly Bell Wright, who plays Beth, the daughter of the slightly ineffectual Grace - her mother who takes on the job of director when the regular woman breaks both of her legs in a freak accident.

This is a feelgood film. Packed to the rafters with hometown, homespun yuletide overload - this is suburban USA in the early 1970s. You sometimes get the feeling that god plays far too much a prominent role in this movie, but I think that's deliberate, because as the feature progresses you see fewer moments of genuine Christian values and a greater number of bigots and people who look down their noses at those worse off. It's packed full of messages, but it's also funny and a bit schmaltzy, but also weird and the Herdmans all ask questions that most people would take for granted. In fact, some of the questions they ask would have them labelled as communists, probably. It's never going to be the best Christmas film you will ever watch, but I'll bet you an eggnog and a full on mistletoe kiss with tongues that you enjoy it considerably more than you think you will. 

Serial Boring

The fifth James May and the Dull Men was surprisingly more entertaining than the previous three. It wasn't a patch on episode one, but the three subsequent ones got quite tedious. This, to be fair, is also quite tedious, but it's amusing, which is more than you can say for the bulk of this series. This week's challenges were: to make a work desk that forces you to exercise (pictured), which might just have some real world practical uses; how to make pasta from pasta and how much ink - in kilometres - is there in your average Bic pen? I still think Seb Tiley - James's odd mate - is as creepy as any villain in a modern horror film, but this week he managed to get one of the production team girls help him out with his Bic challenge and if I was an attractive young lady wearing skimpy summer clothes, I would not be within jizz-lobbing distance of this man; so perhaps he is benign.

The sixth part, had something really useful in it. But first we had to suffer James learning to cut hair in three hours; they made a stupid Sunbrella, bringing the summer under the canopy and making a bowl out of broken bits of old bowls using epoxy resin - which was interesting. Then out of the blue a seventh episode arrived and that was equally as pointless as the previous one... I would be surprised if this show got renewed for a second season.

Comme ci Comme ça

So... Secret Level, the new cgi animated Tim Miller series (the guy who brought us Love, Death & Robots) arrived and we watched the opening four episodes on Sunday night. Two were okay and we gave up on the other two. 50-50 isn't bad, but we're not gamers so what we did watch and became invested in was needed to be good almost from the outset. The best of the opening half of episodes was The Once and Future King about an arsehole Viking-like barbarian - voiced by Arnold Schwarzenegger - it was just a shame that we didn't have subtitles for all the non-English bits. However, after a couple more episodes we decided not to bother with it. The series was only really there as episodic space fillers - something quick to watch when we had less than half an hour to waste - that not to say that the animation hasn't been excellent, it's just been our lack of knowledge of the source material that has been problematic and there's other things out there we need to watch. 

Old Dogs and Wild Cats

Earth Abides reached the halfway point and while the first part covered a year, the second part two years, by the time this one ends - on an actual cliffhanger - 14 years have passed, umpteen children and more survivors - all with stories we never really delve into - now all live in this quiet suburb of San Francisco. The fact that 14 years have whizzed by and very little of note has happened - whatever dramas there have been are all understated and slightly devoid of drama and at times it simply feels like a bunch of off-gridders living in a commune and having little to do with anyone else. The climatic ending of the second part is explained away inside 30 seconds of the third episode and actually little happened between Ish's encounter with a mountain lion at the start of the episode and his next encounter with one at the end. The true thing about this is if 99.9% of people were killed off, there might still be as many as 10 million people left alive; but Earth is a big place and if survivors were evenly spaced there would be an element of luck involved to ever find anyone else.

Wayward Son

[Subtle Kansas reference there...] We haven't really seen Taron Egerton in a bad film, that was until now, because while Carry-On isn't really bad, it is about as far removed from good as you can get in the making of a Die Hard styled movie for Christmas. This was implausible from the word go and while some of the set ups in this might possibly be workable, given the state of US flights since 9/11 and the fact getting on a plane with something dodgy is about as likely as winning two lotteries, one after another. This is your typical going-nowhere average Joe who works at airline security but doesn't really enjoy the job, but is there for his girlfriend, who would rather he became a police officer. From the point where unreliable and uncommitted Egerton decides he wants to be promoted this movie veered into Contrived Land. Jason Bateman is his usual excellent self as the baddy, who always seems one step ahead of everyone else, until something happens that changes it. To say any more would give it away and the last thing you'd want me to do is tell you how they all die horribly at end - the hero, the villain and all the people in the airport - it's Christmas Carnage and, of course, none of that happens. It's on Netflix...

Minnesota Madness Part 3

And so to season three of Fargo... This one has some more A listers and classy actors involved - the fact that Noah Hawley has made something that has top celebs queuing up to be in is testament to a quality product and oddly enough, for a while, we started to wonder how season three could possibly stretch itself out to be 10 episodes, when the two police officers had pretty much worked out the nuts and bolts of the plot by the end of episode four. Anyhow, this time around it's Ewan McGregor - in two roles - Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Michael Stuhlbarg, Carrie Coon, David Thewlis, Mary McDonnell, Hamish Linklater, Shea Wigham, Scoot McNary and Ray Wise, all involved in something decidedly dodgy in 2010. It's about two brothers - one a successful real estate man and the other a failed probation officer - and an argument over a rare stamp that escalates into something you wouldn't imagine happening. There's also the subplot - or is it the real plot - involving an extremely dangerous group of people infiltrating the rich brother's life and business with devastating effects...

Here's the thing; Fargo is more than just the Cohen Brothers film. Noah Hawley has created an entire Fargo universe of stories and links to the past, present and future, all taking place in the winter and all taking place in that strange triangle between Minnesota, North Dakota and, at times South Dakota. We're late to this parade, but I suspect we're not the only ones. Fargo has an 8.9 rating on IMDB - let that sink in... there's little else that is rated higher; so if you've never been tempted - be tempted.   

QI XM

The annual QI Christmas Special dropped a week before the big day and while QI is a bit hit or miss nowadays, this was an entertaining and obviously quite Christmassy attempt at elevating festive information into the realms of silly and absurd. As usual with QI now, there is an element of tenuous and titles of programmes tend to be advisory rather than specific. Sandi Toksvig hosts as usual and is joined by Gyles Brandreth, Lulu, (the very funny) Emmanuel Sonubi and, of course, Alan Davies, who still manages to look and sound amazed when he scores so little. Brandreth was a little more restrained than he usually is, although if you didn't know him you'd seriously wonder about the voracity of my previous statement. Lulu might as well not have bothered turning up; they could have just had a recording of her laugh and played it ear-bleedingly loud. Sonubi has been on the show before and is a genuinely funny man, while Alan Davies sometimes looks as though he can't wait for Z to arrive (although what he'd do after QI is a question worth pondering).

Festive Property Porn

You can tell there's fuck all on TV at the moment if I'm reviewing Scotland's Christmas Home of the Year 2024. Actually, at one point about 15 minutes into this, I was on my phone texting my brother, when the wife said, "Are you watching this?" To which I replied, "Not really. If I was watching it I would be moaning about it and you'd be asking me why I'm watching it." ... Anyhow, the best house won the prize, although the third and fourth houses were also worthy of winning. The second house, which I wasn't keen on, came second and the first house that was all a bit sterile was voted the least best. I miss Michael Angus and Kate Spiers who used to present this with Anna Campbell-Jones, who seems to be letting her naturally curly hair grow out. Banjo Beale is quite a character even if he is Australian and the new guy, a young architect who I can't be bothered to check his name, is just a massive twat with big feet and unbelievably boring. The last two sentences are why I don't tend to watch any more because the wife gets fed up with me being fed up with the dull and boring presenters. The thing is, Campbell-Jones is English (but lives and works in Edinburgh), Beale is an Aussie (who lives on Mull) and [checks internet] Danny Campbell might be Caledonian but zzzzzzzzzzzzzz. At least Angus and Spiers were both Scottish and excellent foils for each other - one being an architect (about my age) and the other an interior designer and [ahem] social media influencer. The new guys just aren't worth listening to; if you don't care what they're saying then there's no point in them being there.

Dune But Not Forgotten

So we've arrived at the penultimate part of the (presumably) first season of Dune Prophecy. I didn't fall asleep during it and some stuff happened. Traitors were exposed; people were put into places where they can fail and I think I started to get a slight grip on the story, which I'll admit might have been quite intriguing if it hadn't been so fucking dull. Fantastic sets, great special effects, some good actors and a story that, like other Dune things, is just too up its own arse to be something to actually care about. Mark Strong's Emperor and his pet Travis Fimmell make their moves and try to flush out any traitors and Sisterhood spies; allegiances are formed and ghosts come back to inhabit the living to give this mystic science vibe. I have to admit I've spent almost a third of this asleep, I'll be glad to see the back of it; I'm sure it's been good, but those bits must have happened while I was sleeping... 

Trailer Trash?

Is it James Gunn? Does he have a superpower? I don't necessarily believe that because I have never been a huge fan of the first two Guardians of the Galaxy pictures. I actually really understood Gunn with Suicide Squad and then with the final Guardians film, which I think was down to familiarity rather than it being a imaginative bit of story telling, which we all ignored because it was so enjoyable - in a kind of nasty way. So, while I've been badgering away at the Marvel Cinematic Universe for the last year or so, Gunn has been rebuilding the DC Universe in his own image. The fruits of his labours will be unleashed on the cinematic public in the summer when Superman arrives (apparently a week before Marvel's The Fantastic Four reboot). Originally it was going to be called Superman Legacy, it appears that Warners are going for broke with the basics. 

There's Krypto the Super Dog and lots of Clark and his alter-ego, Lois Lane and Nicholas Hoult (blimey, he's come a long way since Skins) as Lex Luthor. There are also other super beings, some recognisable, some new (to me) and one that looks suspiciously like Guy Gardner (unless you know, it's a long and mostly laborious story about a wanker who becomes a Green Lantern). I have to be honest, it stirred something in me that I haven't had for quite a while, but I am a Man of Steel fan and have been since the 1990s. That has waned since I've got old and cynical of superhero stuff. I've never watched the Lois and Superman series (and now I know Elizabeth Tullie from Grimm...). Yet, this seemed to twang a note in me. The thing is, I don't want to get my hopes up, because the disappointment will be too much.

Duller and Dull

So we finally settled down to watch a highly rated movie which we had never seen - Kathryn Bigelow's The Hurt Locker, a film I now can kind of understand why we never got around to watching it. Yes, it's a great image of the horrors of modern desert warfare and how it affects the people involved, but it was just a testosterone-fuelled two hours of snapshots from just over a month in Iraq in 2004 of a team of bomb disposal men; or to be more precise a bomb disposal man and his two oppos with guns and licence to shoot anyone who looks a threat. Jeremy Renner and Anthony Mackie - aka Hawkeye and Captain America before they were famous - were the two main actors and it was angsty and earnest and just a little too... meh. I'm sure it's supposed to be so much more than that, but I found myself checking my phone a lot.

You Won't Care

You see this 'humorous' meme, to the left? They have literally made an entire Christmas feature film about this with Jack Black as Satan. It's called Dear Santa and it's a Bobby Farrelly movie about a young dyslexic child who sends Satan a letter rather than Santa. It has a 5.3 rating on IMDB and has some truly appalling reviews, so I wonder if people in the production team got friends to leave positive reviews about it...

I made the picture as small as I could, but I still couldn't write enough words to fill the appropriate space. Perhaps this proliferation of shite Christmas films is to cover up some abnormality or deficiency in the producers of such vomit. I saw a clip of the above film a few weeks ago and knew instantly that it was going to be a large heap of steaming cow shit. Why can't Hollywood give me a lot of money and I'll given them FIVE ideas of how to make better, more commercially successful movies... 

The End...

You know when you've invested time and effort into something and you quickly realise that you're not going to get the pay off you anticipate? Well, the finale of Before was exactly like that. For nine weeks, we navigated our way through the four hours of bollocks hoping that there would be a denouement that was fitting of the strange and ghostly set up. Sadly, we got to the end and I wasn't really sure what I'd witnessed. Was it about inner redemption? Maybe about ghosts that needed to be rid of? In the end it did seem to be all about Eli (Billy Crystal) and Noah seemed to be a conduit. Why the boy was there and what good using him proved to be was somewhat lost and what started as a creepy feeling psychological thriller descended into a what felt like a lot of New Age mumbo-jumbo. Was there a ghost moving the pieces and ultimately what pieces were being moved. Crystal was excellent, but it felt like a wasted opportunity in the end...

Christmas Film

There have been some excellent Christmas films, we all have our favourites. As I started editing this week's blog The Bishop's Wife had just started on BBC2. It's a truly wonderful film and like many other classics of its ilk you don't really know it's a Christmas movie, despite it playing out behind David Niven, Loretta Young and Cary Grant. Marvellous! 

Next Time...

... you read this column Christmas will be all over apart from that period between Boxing Day and New Year when you don't know if you've had a shit that day, whether or not you have visitors coming round and if your liver can take any more booze that you avoid drinking 363 days a year.

I hope you all have a festive and fun Yule and if you're expecting a list of favourite films and TV of 2024 then can I recommend trawling through the 52 or so posts I've made in 2024 and picking the carrots out of the vomit yourself? Have a good one!