My Cultural Life - Time Waits For No Man

What's Up? 

Me. That's what's up. I was looking at Facebook memories last week and it being April, six years ago we had that thing called lockdown, where everything stopped and we avoided each other so we wouldn't die. It was a bit like WWII except without bombs and fewer Nazis. I posted a lot on Facebook, much of it humorous or poignant. One thing stuck out for me, one of my family suggested I write a novel and I admitted, honestly, that I simply didn't have the inclination or motivation to sit down and write anything...

The thing is, I wrote a novel (my last) about 10 years ago now. It was called The Imagination Station and it was about a sentient mushroom and the small Leicestershire village it took over. The wife read it and I've never looked at it again. Back in January, I decided that 2026 was going to be the year that I opened up my 'In progress' folder (a misnomer if ever there was one) and either dump stuff or do something with it. I even contemplated looking at the seven or eight novels I've got first drafts of and trying to do something with them. But it's now April and I didn't do any of those things...

I'll be 64 in eight days and I think I've had an interesting life, so far, but I do have this nagging regret that for someone who has written so many words, professionally and in blogs or everything else I've written, that I haven't become the widely published author that I said I was going to become way back in 1980 when I wrote my first 'novel' - incidentally about a young man with such amazing abilities that he was almost a god (I was reading a lot of comics and had just discovered Stephen King). I found that in the loft when we were moving nine years ago and it's now about four feet away from me (and hasn't been looked at in nine years).  

When I say 'regret' that isn't really what I mean. probably more angry and pissed off with myself that I have the discipline to write this blog every week, write quizzes (not the same thing, but you get the drift), emails, diatribes on social media - usually in comments sections where I'll be lucky if a handful of people bother reading and yet I can't sit down and develop any of the countless ideas I've had over the last nearly 50 years, or go back and do some turd polishing. 

This isn't going to be an opening monologue that ends with me declaring I've written or am going to write a new novel - that's not the case here, because over the last few years I've had fewer ideas than I used to have and even fewer of those ideas have actually made it to the 'word processor' and all of them have never been followed up. I have only myself to blame, it's not like I'm working or anything. I suppose this is more of an if you want to do something and you find yourself with time then don't piss and moan about not achieving things kind of thing; because, you know, time waits for no one so you have to seize the day.

Not the End

Shrinking finished. What I thought was the penultimate episode was, in fact, the finale (because episode one was actually episodes one and two). It became clear very quickly that this was the finale because Alice went off to college. Paul was already in Connecticut and Gaby asked her Derek to marry her. Jimmy discovered that Sean had moved out and everyone's lives were sorted apart from Jimmy's. He was nursing his wounds and feeling lonely and alone; his argument with Paul bothered him, his daughter leaving was killing him and he realised he still had a lot of work to do. There was a genuinely poignant and lovely ending, in two parts, one of them expected, the other not so much. And it was over and I felt a pang of loss; it had been such a great show, despite all the lovely wealthy people living their best lives and being impossibly happy and funny... except just before I sat down to write this, I discovered that it had been renewed for a fourth season, despite everything I'd read suggesting this was it. I am happy, because it's a great show, it will be interesting to see where it goes now the cast have all gone their own ways. 

Back in Town

The Boys are back for a final season and I think it's just about outstayed its welcome. It started off really good - a great contemporary superhero series that went the extra mile in terms of pushing the envelope, but after the crap spin-offs and the meandering shite story lines of the last couple of seasons, I don't really care what happens to it now. I'd like it to conclude and we can all move on to whatever comes next. Homelander now runs the USA, the Seven are just a front for Vought and a lot has changed in the year since season four's finale. Billy Butcher has reassembled the team, with Starlight in tow, for one last attempt at stopping the rise of the superheroes, by using the virus that was created and now is apparently strong enough to kill Homelander. It's full of bad language, bad taste and bad choices and even the death of a major character in the first of two parts, that dropped, hasn't really done anything to make this any better.

Plus, I have to mention Erin Moriarty - aka Starlight aka Annie January. What the actual fuck has that woman done to her face? Her eyes, nose and mouth are almost completely different shapes; there have been countless rumours about her having had plastic surgery and other cosmetic work and even if she hasn't (which I don't believe) it hasn't given her the acting ability she's been missing since she took on the role. Whoever has been advising her about her appearance needs drowning in a pool of their own vomit. I really don't want to seem like I'm being sexist or judgmental, but she looks both wrong and awful...

On the Bullseye

After the two kind of lifeless episodes last time, this week's Daredevil: Born Again was anything but. It's hard to believe this is a Disney show, but it really could be the way forward for Marvel if it can continue to make superb TV shows like this. It's just full of tension, jeopardy, violence and great acting. This time around the focus falls on Bullseye and his decision to repay Matt for killing Foggy. Matt's code prevents him from allowing the hired assassin from killing the Kingpin - although in reality it was Vanessa Fisk who ordered the hit. There was also a boxing match, one that could have spelled a problem for Fisk had circumstances not taken over and there was some hope for our heroes and our villains as the chess match continues to wind its way towards the inevitable ending. Top notch stuff.

Related to this is the trailer for Punisher: One Last Kill, a TV movie that's out the week after DD finishes in May, which will also tie in with this summer's new Spider-Man film, but is a standalone story. It looks very good and for once I'm excited to be excited because DD has lived up to his Netflix days, so I expect Frank Castle will be the same. 

No More Offers

I had never seen The Godfather Part 3, (or The Godfather: Coda as it was repackaged as) and after watching it I completely understood why. I'm almost tempted to ask if it was a comedy, but given the lack of levity in the first two films, I doubt it was, at least deliberately. In this third part of the trilogy Al Pacino is no longer playing Michael Corleone, he's playing Al Pacino (something he did from about the late 1980s on) and in some ways that adds a new dimension to this. The remaining cast members from the first two films - Diane Keaton and Talia Shire - actually have parts to play in this, although Keaton's role as Michael's ex-wife feels like it was needed to give the family aspect some balance (and to help Anthony escape the family). The real surprise was Sofia Coppola as Mary Corleone, this was nepotism as its finest. This girl cannot act. She was awful and whenever she was on screen, or speaking, which seemed like huge chunks of it, the film took on a quality way below what you would have expected with people like Pacino and Keaton on the cast list. Maybe she can direct, but she doesn't know how to act.

The story starts off reasonably okay with Michael trying hard to legitimise the Corleone family, but still having to deal with mob business, especially when Sonny's bastard son Vincent comes along, busts his way into the family - at the behest of Connie (Shire) - and then begins an almost incestuous relationship with Mary. Instead of having this punk wannabe Mafioso rubbed out, Mikey takes him in and shows him the ropes, but its not long before Michael is having to do boss business as Vincent can't leave bad alone. Then it gets catastrophically stupid, chronologically weird and completely batshit. The Corleone's foundation, which is charitable and does a lot for the Catholic church wants to bail out the church from a massive debt by buying one of its companies; this eventually leads to the summer of the three popes, suggesting that Pope John Paul I was in thrall to the mob and was killed off because of his relationship with Michael Corleone. [The year of the three popes happened in 1978, but this movie is set in 1980] It concludes with an almost 30 minute opera simile that is so ridiculous you had to think that Francis Ford Coppola was simply taking the piss. 3/10 

The Thief, the Cop and the VP

There's something about Chris Hemsworth that often bothers me - the simple fact he's not very good at acting unless he's playing Thor, which he is very good at. In Crime 101 he plays an emotionally stunted super thief, who robs expensive things from wealthy people but never harms anyone. Joining him are Mark Ruffalo as the rogue cop, looking washed up, who is obsessed with catching this lone thief that his department thinks of as the detective's Moby Dick and Halle Berry as the disillusioned insurance broker who is watching her life fly past while being overlooked for a partnership in her firm. This makes a heady cocktail of possibilities in a thriller that also has Nick Nolte (he's 85 you know) and Barry Keogh as Hemsworth's Bette Noir. It's an enjoyable movie with some convincing characters in modern LA, especially given how the gap between rich and poor is widening in the USA all the time. Not a classic, but worthy of a 7/10.

Shocker

Guy Ritchie has made some good films and he's remade one of his movies several times, changing just the characters and subtle tweaks to the story. Rocknrolla is essentially a rehash of Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels which has also been remade in different forms, at different times, in Ritchie's career. This time it's about dodgy real estate, a missing painting, which we never see, Cohen-esque style double crosses and unexpected events and it was loud, brash and not very good. There were none of the director's usual geezers in it, presumably because they'd all graduated to other films and roles, so this time it's Gerard Butler, Idris Elba, Mark Strong, Tom Wilkinson, Tom Hardy and Toby Kebbell as crooks, musicians, gangsters and gay associates; Thandi Newton is also in it as a kind of link between them all. I didn't enjoy it. 5/10

Powell's Curse

Glen Powell is a good looking fella, he also has a great speaking voice and there's a lot of smart money on him becoming the next George Clooney or Brad Pitt; the sex symbol actor of the 2030s, perhaps. The problem the 38 year old has is his choice of roles, specifically in film, which aren't bad, he could just do with reading the script before taking them on. His The Running Man remake was remarkably entertaining until the final 10 minutes when it became a WTF mess and his latest How to Make a Killing - which is a modern updating of Kind Hearts and Coronets - is spoiled by the final ten minutes or so, when the film ditches its moral dilemmas and goes for plain stupid. This is the story of Beckett - Powell - who is the illegitimate offspring of a mega-wealthy family, a family that dumped his mother when she fell pregnant and then refused to have anything to do with her ever again. So Beckett decides to kill all the potential inheritors off to claim the family fortune for himself. This was entertaining nonsense, with a slightly twisted viewpoint, until we enter the home stretch and it just becomes bad farce and bollocks. 6/10

The Krap

I'm not really sure how to describe the 1983 film The Keep mainly because it makes almost no sense at all. There's a good idea in there but it's hidden by one of the most appalling scripts I've ever heard. It was like the writer of the dialogue started sentences and forgot what he was writing about before he got to the end of the same sentence. Apart from making no sense at all, it was full of things that I don't really understand why they were even there. The film is about a platoon of German soldiers who have been assigned to guard a pass in the Carpathian mountains and set up camp inside an ancient keep - which was the most impressive thing about it. After a few nights there, the men start being killed off in horrible ways, so the commander - Jurgen Prochnow - contacts his superiors and instead of reassigning him, they send Gabriel Byrne there with his SS platoon and they start killing people and acting like proper Nazis.

The soldiers have unleashed some kind of demon and as this happened a man in Greece - played by Scott Glenn - wakes up and travels to Romania - by boat; we don't get any idea of who he is or why he's in Greece or why he's been summoned to the Keep and it pretty much stays that way. Also, Ian McKellan (sounding like a New Yorker) and his daughter Alberta Brooks - both Jews awaiting a move to a concentration camp - are also summoned to the keep, because he's an expert at something. There are lots of cameos from people we never see again, lots of dialogue that literally makes no sense at all and the special effects were... remarkable. I think I could have done better with some toilet rolls, sticky backed plastic and a used washing up liquid bottle. An achievement of staggering proportions, possibly the most nonsensical thing I have ever watched. 1/10

Names & Names & Names

Anyone who reads this blog often enough will know that I'm a big fan of time travel and time loop movies, so when a new one comes out I'm usually all over it like a rash. However, when I first saw trailers and heard about Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice I was a little sceptical about it. Yes, James Marsden has suddenly - in middle age - become the star he was touted to be in the noughties; Vince Vaughn has his moments and Eiza Gonzalez is a rising star, but any film that has Keith David or Dolph Lundgren in usually means 'cheap'. This wasn't cheap, as such, it just wasn't quite on target. Vaughn plays Nick, who travels back in time to get Mike to help him stop Mike from being killed. Alice has a key role to play, but anything else I say will ruin what is a thin premise with little science involved. It's not going to win anything. 6/10

Trouble & Strife

Two main things happened in the second episode of the new season of Your Friends & Neighbours - Coop's daughter makes a decision that rocks her parents, but especially her mother - Amanda Peet - who is entering the menopause and not coping well at all. The other thing is one of those things that you'd expect people with more money than sense to have floating around their unguarded houses, something which Coop hadn't counted on, but instead of going one obvious way, it decides to go in a far more 'interesting' direction. 

Death on Mars

One thing For All Mankind has never shied away from has been to kill off main cast members; it's happened in every series and usually they weren't expected, which is why they have been so profoundly impactful. The latest death is possibly the most poignant and deep reaching of them all, as a beloved character says goodbye and leaves us with just one of the original gang. This was an episode about the longest serving cast members - Joel Kinnaman, Wrenn Smidt and Coral Pena - how one arrives at the end of their story, one is going nowhere and one of them is finally getting the chance to do something that has never happened before. This was an episode about life and death and while it felt a little self-indulgent - with cameos from Michael Dorman and Shantel Van Santen - this show has earned the right to do that kind of an episode. I wonder where it's going to go now?

What's Up Next?

More of the same, maybe some wiser choices of films.

This has been an Orange Shitler free zone. 

My Cultural Life - Death From Above and Below

What's Up? 

Look, this is controversial and I risk alienating certain people among my friends who might feel that I should either shut up or think another way. The thing is, stuff has happened this week that has essentially 'given me high blood pressure.'

It started with Scott Mills - a TV and radio personality who, to be totally honest, I know little or nothing about; he came onto the scene long after I'd given up with Radios One and Two. Initially I was disinterested in his sacking from the BBC and by the time I got around to writing this - Wednesday morning - the only thing he's guilty of, it seems, is an historic 'allegation' about possible coercive abuse. From 2004, which was dismissed by the police as having insufficient evidence to even be more than an informal interview in 2018.

It appears, on the face of it, that Scott Mills has had his career destroyed for something he's never been found guilty of and might be completely innocent of. Yes, I know the BBC wants to be whiter than white and they're not going to take any chances, in case Mills is somehow Jimmy Savile's protégé, but couldn't they have been a little less sledgehammery about it? 

The thing is, this isn't even the issue that's bugged me this week. The thing that has really boiled my piss is related to something I wrote about a month or so ago; about the kid I worked with when I was at the Youth Offending Service, the lad who got done for statutory rape. You see, I'm totally convinced that if that lad's name became known around Kettering and what he did was taken out of context, he would have his life destroyed...

So, what's that got to do with anything this week? Imagine if that lad had never gone to court. Imagine if the police knew his stepsister had a history of allegations about her before they deemed it worthy to follow up on her latest allegations? Then imagine social media existed in 2004 the way it does now and how the young man I worked with would have been treated by keyboard warriors and people who think the law dishes out inadequate sentences. It wouldn't be very nice, would it? It would probably be quite feral.

Now, this is going to seem like a very strange digression, but it isn't. My football club appointed a new manager on Tuesday 31st March; an Italian chap called Roberto De Zerbi, the former manager of Brighton and Marseille. The Tottenham Hotspur Supporters Club and many of the woman's clubs associated with my team have strongly objected to RDZ's appointment, on a long term contract, despite the fact that the team are shit and could be relegated. They have been extremely vocal about the fact that RDZ was once the manager of former Man Utd footballer Mason Greenwood.

Greenwood, one or two of you might remember, was the young footballer, capped by England and being heralded by Man Utd as a world class star of the future. Then shortly after his 21st birthday, he was accused of assault and attempted rape and was suspended by Man U while the case slowly worked its way through the procedures. Shortly after Greenwood's 22nd birthday the case was dropped, the CPS and the police released a statement: the charges of attempted rape against Mason Greenwood [have been] dropped due to the withdrawal of key witnesses and new material that [has] came to light, which meant there was no longer a realistic prospect of conviction. 

Yes, there were carefully leaked pictures of his then girlfriend to the press, which suggest he maybe shouldn't have been let off, but there were also reports that his then girlfriend had 'form' for this kind of thing; so where do you draw the line? Who do you believe? Can there really be any definitive villain?

However, the media - both social and the paid for kind - didn't want to leave this alone and a campaign, started by Countdown's Rachel Riley, saw to it that Man Utd would eventually sell the player, for a reduced fee, to a foreign side, because, despite Greenwood being innocent until proven guilty by a court of law, the press, publicity seeking mathematicians and social media shat and stamped in it and made sure his life in the UK was ruined. But... but... what's this got to do with Tottenham Hotspur?

Well, Man Utd sold Greenwood to Marseille and RDZ was manager when the French Riviera side bought the (by then) 23 year old player and RDZ was seen to give his support to the player and strangely enough didn't want to throw the kid under another bus.

Let's simply look at the facts here: a young man was charged with a crime; the alleged crime was never prosecuted because there was not enough evidence and the police (no-so-subtly) released information that suggested the witness statement by the alleged victim had more holes in it than Swiss cheese. The problem here is a lot of people had made their minds up about Greenwood, maybe because he's a young black footballer, so he must be guilty and as a result these people have ensured he never works in the country of his birth ever again and his only crime was to be on the wrong end of an unproved allegation.

The new manager of my football team is now being smeared with same tar brush. He's apparently not fit enough to manage a team of Spurs standing... This is because he supported one of his members of staff; wasn't going to be drawn on the subject and made that clear to the predominantly British journalists present at the unveiling of the new Marseille player. I wouldn't mind if these Spurs fans were spitting their dummies out of their gobs because RDZ had gone on French TV and said, "Mason admitted everything to me, but I don't care where he puts his things as long as its in the back of an opponents net!" But all he did was offer some support to a lad, who might be a complete shit, but hasn't been proven to be a complete shit just yet...

I might be wrong here. I might have got this totally wrong and the press, the internet and the people who have dedicated their lives to destroying Mason Greenwood's know something our courts, police and crown prosecutors don't. Maybe I'm looking in the wrong places for their justification and verification to continue their hatred of this young black footballer. Maybe Scott Mills is an evil predator? Maybe the kid I worked with in the Noughties was secretly a friend of Jeffrey Epstein and maybe I'm a sympathiser because I worked with him and didn't campaign to have his life destroyed even more? 

Or maybe guilt or innocence means nothing when the mob rules?

The Scales of Justice

A double bill of Daredevil - Born Again this week (I have no idea why) and as everything seems to be turning to shit for Matt, Karen and those opposing Fisk, there's a ray of hope and some good news. The thing is both sides think they're inches away from a breakthrough. The Anti Vigilante Task Force has become a law unto themselves and the Governor of New York gets into the act, much to Fisk's annoyance, because it seems she can't be bought and has no skeletons in her closet. A new player emerges, but in general this felt like a midway point in the story and had this stayed as it originally was planned - one 13 part series - that's pretty much where we'd be. It's still head and shoulders better than anything else MCU TV has done even if it was largely dancing around and going nowhere. 

Shrunken Heads

Jimmy is incapable of addressing his 'daddy issues' but it becomes clear that he thinks of Paul as more of a father than his real one, or at least that's the impression this week's episode of Shrinking gave. Speaking of his real dad, he dumps the fact he's not going to be at Alice's graduation and she takes it surprisingly well, but she isn't carrying the emotional baggage her dad is. Everything else starts to get resolved; the beginning of the end has happened and the places are all moving to their new positions. Derek and Liz have a disagreement over something they should be happy about and Brian decides to do the honourable thing and accompany his husband to Tennessee. Sean gets his own place, makes up with his friend and all that's left is Jimmy and his happiness, except he looks like he's going on a downward spiral. Two to go. 

A Dollop of Shit

Jesus wept. I need to stop subjecting myself to shite. After not really enjoying Kiss the Girls last week, I thought the sequel Along Came A Spider would at least have the added bonus of no Ashley Judd; but even the absence of this below-average actress couldn't save it. This time around Morgan Freeman's Alex Cross had the dubious pleasure of acting opposite Monica Potter (no, me neither) as a Secret Service agent whose main job is protecting a senator's daughter and failing. This truly is a mish-mash of bad ideas, poor execution and some of the most woeful acting I have seen in many moons. Like this film's prequel, it lacked in many departments and even the twists ended up being more yawn than yowser. Freeman wanders around looking and sounding like the only person on set who has ever been in a film before and, frankly, he was probably pleased there wasn't a threequel. Awful rubbish. 2/10

Pigs of War? 

On the recommendation of a friend, we watched War Dogs with Miles Teller, Jonah Hill and Bradley Cooper. I've had it on the Flash Drive of Doom (FDoD) for about four months and simply never got around to watching it, but Sunday night we remedied that and it made a pleasant change to watch a comedy action film that actually delivered - even if delivery problems was one of the main themes of the movie. Teller's David has been struggling with a pregnant wife doing his job as a professional masseuse when Jonah Hill's Ephraim wanders back into his life. The two had been friends at High School and now Ephraim is offering his old buddy the chance of making some money by joining him as an arms dealer... 

They start by supplying stuff to the US government that big arms dealers simply don't touch, but as they become more experienced and meet new people their chances of becoming big players increases until they get a contract to supply the US army a lot of AK47 bullets. The problem is the bullets come from China and the USA doesn't do business with China. This is where Bradley Cooper comes into the thick of things and everything goes from a little dodgy to 'absolutely get the fuck away from this' crazy. It is an excellent film and a true story about how the American Dream can be a quick reality if you're prepared to break the law. It's worth checking out if you can find it anywhere. 8/10

The Letdown

The worst thing? I watched this on Saturday and realised on Monday afternoon I hadn't reviewed it. That's almost a bad review in itself, but the opening episode of season five of For All Mankind was really understated and devoid of the same kind of set-up and jeopardy seen in previous seasons. This was bordering on ... soap opera. Obviously politics is taking a front seat, but everything seems to have stood still over the 10 years since the end of season four and the 'stealing' of the Goldilocks asteroid. It could almost be a kind of prequel to the tensions between Earth and Mars highlighted many years ago in Babylon 5 or The Expanse and not as interesting. In series past there has been a era changing event to kick the season off, this time it's the first murder on Mars and the remaining original cast members, seen this week, going through various stages of age related stress. It felt tired and uninspired, let's hope that isn't the case.

Episode two dropped before I finished this week's blog and while it was an improvement on the opener, with a couple of revelations that err towards big things, it still felt a little like the producers wanted to make the world (and surrounding colonies) a little more like a Trump World Order. There's a lot of Russians in this but little mention of the USSR, the same with North Korea and, of course, in this alternate history China is a bit part player. There's an element of chess pieces being moved, but at the moment they all seem to be going against our motley group of heroes.

Death in Paradise

This nagging feeling that we lost touch with what Paradise is actually about was amplified to the nth degree with the season two finale and I have to admit that I'm weirdly intrigued by it, despite suggesting it's time to call time on the show. Will it be back for season three? I reckon it will, but let's be honest about this - there is no paradise any longer and this is no longer a show about some survivors of a natural and nuclear holocaust, it's about AI and whether or not time is now full of anomalies screwing up with the actual fabric of space and time. Yes, you read that correctly.  This is about an impossibly super AI computer trying to avert the end of the world by creating space time anomalies... It seems the bits I've been losing track of might have been deliberate and it's also possible that none of this happened and everyone in this is living inside a giant simulation created by Alex - the super AI, thus creating time shifts and weird things happening that maybe shouldn't. I really don't know; this show has found a shark, hired a motorcycle and created an entire performance of new ways of jumping over said shark...

Underground Dung

There are loads of trash films from the 80s and 90s that I wouldn't give house room to in 2026, so why I thought watching Tremors again would be a good idea I have no idea. Kevin Bacon looks very, very young in it, even Fred Ward looks the right side of 50 and these two play a couple of hick hillbilly wasters doing shit jobs in a town of 14 people called Perfection. The acting is hammy; the assortment of characters are cliched and the idea of strange prehistoric (possibly) creatures attracted to vibrations and terrorising the 14 people isn't that bad, in fact the special effects for a 1990 movie aren't awful; it's just a load of shit. Stinky - like the creatures - shit and somehow it's spawned god knows how many sequels. I'm not even glad I watched it again; I wanted to switch it off after five minutes. 3/10

Another Offer Refused

Strangely, it was the wife who suggested we watch The Godfather Part 2 and so we did. Unlike the first part, this really felt like a new film for me. I had seen it, but many many years ago and it clearly didn't have that much of an impression on me. This is an even longer movie than the first film, weighing in at almost three and a half hours and having an even more rambling story, taking place over a shorter space of time. This part kicks off in 1957, Michael is living in Nevada and has the local senator in his pocket, even if the local senator isn't aware of this. The extent of how much control the Corleones have is never really explored, even if we get the backstory of how Vito - a young Robert De Nero - became a crime lord. Like the first film, this is a movie devoid of levity (and in this case brevity) and is essentially a tale of someone pissing Michael off and they get whacked, except in a couple of cases the hit goes wrong, but eventually everyone Michael wanted dead died. That's the thing, Michael Corleone might have been Vito's great hope for legitimising the family, but he's nothing more than a paranoid psychopath who is more interested in revenge than anything else.

Honestly? I found this to be a dull movie, over long and without any real sense that I could give a fuck about any of the characters; with the exception of Robert Duval's Tom Hagen, who, it seems, gets dicked around all the time for being totally loyal to the cause. I can't bring myself to award this a 6, but a 7/10 seems charitable.

Trailer Trash

The new (IMAX) trailer for Supergirl dropped on April 1st and it appears to be genuine and not an April Fool's prank. It still has a Guardian of the Galaxy feel about it; we see Lobo properly and it appears to all be about finding a cure for a poison some nutters have shot into Krypto and as Kara has survivor guilt and Krypto is her bestest buddy then you know what's coming and how it will end. The dog will survive and Supergirl will kick ass to a banging soundtrack. The end. It does look cool though, so it'll probably be a load of donkeys balls.

More Afghanistan

There's nothing wrong with Guy Ritchie's The Covenant apart from the fact it's surprisingly dull and boring. Jake Gyllenhaal plays a sergeant in the US army traipsing around Afghanistan looking for IEDs. He has a local man as translator, who because of his associations is regarded as a traitor by many of his own. When Jake's entire platoon is wiped out in a Taliban attack, it's just him and his translator left and the latter goes through hell to get his 'boss' home, Then the US government reneges on a deal to bring the translator and his family back to the USA, so Jake sorts it out himself. 5/10

Rich Pricks

Jon Hamm's back as Coop in Your Friends & Neighbours, the show about a rich man who loses his job so starts robbing his friends and neighbours, because they're all so wealthy it's months before they even realise anything has been stolen. The new series introduces Ash - played by James Marsden - who is obviously going to be a crook, maybe even organised crime, but at the moment he's just another rich guy flaunting his money like there's no tomorrow. Coop has a bad back, which is making cat burglary more difficult than it should be and everything has moved on a year and feels like there's some back story that we're going to need filling in. It is a mildly amusing look at people with more money than sense.

What's Up Next?

Well... The Boys is back for its final series and I suppose I'm mildly anticipating it. Actually, I don't think I am. It was good for the first two seasons and then it got bogged down in story and reasons to exist.

It does appear to be a boom time in TV suddenly; from complaining about there being bugger all three weeks ago to a schedule that's packed with stuff. I mean, I haven't even bothered mentioning in the main body that Landward is back (for people in Scotland, but you can find it on iPlayer) and how that's an enjoyable 30 minutes a week of stuff that puts Countryfile to shame. I also haven't bothered mentioning that our guilty pleasure for the last couple of weeks has been Escape to the Country, but not every one, just places we're familiar with. It's a dreadful show, but somehow manages to makes itself seem so much better than all the ones of a similar ilk, such as A New Life in the Sun on C4, which swaps aesthetics for some kind of strange competition.

To be honest with you, I could have written about loads of stuff this week. I simply didn't think it was appropriate, which is why I'm surprised I'm still leading with the story I am. The thing is I'm such a feminist it surprises a lot of people - usually women. So I usually prefer to avoid issues like sexual assault, gender or things that might suggest I'm some kind of misogynist and this is supposed to be entertaining, but it's also about the culture I subject myself to and the news is very much part of that culture.

I even got to the point midweek where I really just felt like switching off the news, removing the Guardian from my bookmarks and not interact with anything outside of the town I live in. There are 21 Donald Trump stories in Saturday's Guardian. TWENTY ONE! That's almost a fifth of the stories covered on the newspaper's website. I know the man is a dangerous psychopathic narcissist but I'm fed up to the back teeth with seeing his fucking smug face plastered all over the media. It's what he wants. He wants the world to be talking about him ALL THE FUCKING TIME!!!

And here I am, talking about that great orange cunt in my closing remarks. It's like the press at the moment are fixated on that man, his fucking Mini Me in the UK and whose careers they can ruin because someone said something once when they were 8 and if they don't accept full responsibility for it, own it and apologise for it then their careers are going to be over. What a fucking world we live in?

My Cultural Life - Classical Trash

What's Up?

As we zero in towards the May elections, I just want to remind people out there with bad memories that however bad you think the current Labour government is, try and remember the chaos and corruption we suffered for at least 14 of the 14 years the last Tory government rained down on us and while you're doing that imagine what a country the UK will be like if you give Reform UK power - given they are made up almost 50% of the worst Tory ministers we had during those 14 years; they want to stop you from having what you're entitled to - and if you refuse to believe that you deserve everything that will happen to you - and they have a leader who is a racist, Russia-loving cockwomble who will say anything to get into power so he can give tax cuts and pay days to all his far right friends. He'll dismantle everything and fuck off to France.

That's what's up and you really shouldn't ignore it.

Too Many Jimmys

After the truly dull and boring 28 Years Later, we kept putting off watching 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple because we kind of dreaded the underwhelming feeling we were expecting. We shouldn't have been so worried; this is the film 28 Years Later should have been (although, in truth, you couldn't have had this without that). This time the focus is on Dr Ian Kelson (Ralph Fiennes) from the previous picture and his attempts to try and discover what makes the virus that turns people into marauding nutters tick. It also follow the Jimmys - led by Jack O'Connell - as they sadistically kill their way through the non-infected survivors, while despatching the infected with relative ease. This is a much better, fast moving and intelligent movie that, of course, leaves things open for a third part, by not only leaving one story completely open, but also adding the story of 'Samson', who we met in the first film, but takes a much greater role in this one. Samson is an Alpha and Dr Ian thinks he can cure him. If you watched 28 Years Later and felt cheated, then watch this as many of the pieces slot together to make a superior chapter. There's also an intriguing cameo that will give you a good feeling about the future. 8/10

An Offer You Can't Refuse

I don't know how long it has been since I last watched The Godfather, Francis Ford Coppola's seminal classic gangster movie, regarded as one of the greatest films of all time. It's probably been 40 plus years and if I want to be honest, I  don't think this epic has aged well. There is a sense of this being far too long and sprawling, like it could have had some of the fat trimmed off of it and maybe some of the scenes could have been a little less circumspect. Maybe some time showing more of the violent world of the Corleones. It is still a great film, but there's something about it that just feels a little too melodramatic, too stylised and earnest. Too art house. Yes, it's about a Mafia family across a period of time and the wars they get involved with and the losses they take by being a crime syndicate family, but it really lacks levity; it's just far too serious and, as I said, goes on and on and on. In 1972 this would have felt different, in 2026 it feels of a time.

I suppose the key thing about this isn't Marlon Brando's Don Vito Corleone, or James Caan's Sonny, or even Robert Duval's Tom, this is about Al Pacino's Michael, the one member of the family that Vito did not want to be a criminal and how he ends up being the best suited to replace his father, because not only does he have the brains, he also has the ruthless streak that is needed to be the next Godfather. It is a three hour movie and like last week's Gandhi there's the feeling of having to plough through so much story without getting a real feel for the lives in it. I'd argue that a huge chunk of the middle could probably have been omitted and it wouldn't have lost any of its impact. Still, it's still worthy of an 8/10 although I'm sure some people wouldn't be happy with me marking it so low...

Bunker Dreams

I'm getting a little confused now. The penultimate episode of the second season of Paradise appears to be getting more bogged down and I've lost track of what's going on so much I'm not sure who is who and what is what now. Xavier's distraction is sorted out relatively and quite boringly easily, before him and his recently reunited spouse are on a train to Colorado. In the bunker, Sinatra meets the leader of the guys who have turned up on her doorstep, the same guys we met with Shailene Woodley in the opening episode and one of them might be her dead son, if I'm following this correctly and some odd shit happens. Jane meets her match and everyone is talking about someone or something called 'Alex'. I don't think I have the will to persevere with this after next week; there's simply too much going on and none of it is very interesting.

Desert Island Dread

Sam Raimi is back. His first film since that Doctor Strange load of nonsense stars Rachel McAdam again, this time as a plain Jane accountant who attracts the disdain of her new Gen-Z CEO. He is played by Dylan O'Brien and he's a complete arsehole. The two somehow end up being marooned on a desert island near Thailand and despite McAdam's Linda doing everything she can to help and save her boss, he's an ungrateful wanker prepared to stab her in the back at the earliest convenience. The thing is, she's a fan of survival programmes and knows her way around a desert island and he's just an entitled twat. Will he change; will he see Linda for the hero she is? Send Help is a black comedy liberally laced with some eye-popping events, to emphasise the pain the two main characters have to endure. It starts off looking like it's going to be a Misery riff and then morphs into a kind of sadomasochistic Robinson Crusoe and while it was slightly absurd in places it was good fun. 7/10

Two Killers All Filler

Sometimes I find myself wondering why it is I never watched a specific movie. Was it because I had been put off by reviews I'd read? Possibly. Maybe it was from someone I know who's seen it and wasn't impressed? Also possibly. I don't know why I'd never got around to watching Morgan Freeman's Kiss the Girls or maybe I had watched it and just completely forgotten about it, except for one little thing, that nagged me all the way through watching it. I knew who the bad guy was almost the instant he turned up on screen - so maybe I had seen it and thought I should never watch it again. Aside from that this is a film that floundered at times - the story felt strangely superficial; the acting was, at times, the kind that makes you pucker your lips and wince at how bad it was and it also felt like it had had about 20 minutes cut out, which might have helped with many things about the seeming brevity of the actual story. This was released around the time that Ashley Judd was being touted as the Next Big Thing and someone watched this and realised she wasn't even going to be the next forgotten thing. Her character alone felt tonally wrong and like she had been written by a man, because she was either super weak or super strong; she had no normal traits; no middle ground. This is the story of a serial killer who is also a serial collector of intelligent women and the incompetent (or are they?) North Carolina police department who seem to have no idea what is going on. Freeman comes along as criminal psychologist Alex Cross to solve their case and uncover the shady secrets. 5/10

Absurd Nonsense

I liked Olympus Has Fallen, compared to the disappointing White House Down it was full of visceral action and edge of the seat jeopardy. However, London Has Fallen, the sequel - and the film I mentioned had a lousy rating on IMDB - is absolute horse wank. Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, about it is bollocks. It is wrong from almost the opening minutes. I know Gerard Butler is from Scotland, but there are a bunch of British actors in this and you would have thought that one of them, in passing, might have mentioned that the entire premise for this movie is rubbish. From the destruction of London, via bad special effects, to the fact that it made little or no sense, was geographically all over the place and suggests every countries intelligence is rubbish and not worth the money that is spent on it. If anyone working on the film thought to mention to anyone important that much of this was senseless rubbish then the people who made this film took no notice and still made this load of twaddle. The movie was borderline racist and worked on the premise that you can infiltrate the Met, MI5 and 6 and the army with enough rogue mercenaries and NO ONE notices is pretty much clueless; or that London's people would simply mysteriously disappear when they could be filming it on their smart phones and streaming it live on social media was utterly fucking moronic. This was appalling and worthless. It's much worse than the 5.9 rating it commands on the internet. 2/10 (and it really should be 1).

Daddy Issues

As the show gradually winds down to its inevitable ending in three weeks, we had more resolutions (and revelations), more confrontations and quite a few unexpected events in the latest episode of Shrinking. Sean (Luke Tennie) has been offered the job of sous chef with a big LA restauranteur but is going to let his own paid staff down badly. Paul manages to persuade Gaby back to work with added incentive and Brian gets to camp it up while giving his own version of a Ted Talk. Yet all of this pales into insignificance to what is happening at Jimmy's. His father is back on the scene and making big plans for Alice's graduation, but only Jimmy knows the bad news. This brings him at odds with Sofie, who, like everyone else, thinks Jimmy needs to park his daddy issues and just enjoy his old man being there for his daughter. The thing is Jimmy knows his dad better than anyone else...

Man Without Fears

This week has seen the return of television to my life. Despite knowing there's only three episodes of Shrinking left and that the first episode of the new season of For All Mankind will not be watched until Saturday, I did get to see the opening salvo from Daredevil: Born Again as it winged its way back onto the small screen and proved yet again it is head and shoulders better than anything else Marvel has done for the small screen. In an episode that mirrors the shit that ICE has been doing in the USA for the last six months, Matt realises that his battle against Wilson Fisk has just got a whole lot worse and it isn't safe for any of his friends. As the Anti Vigilante Task Force run NYC with an iron fist and Fisk increases his power with the help of Langley, Virginia, it might take strange alliances to help him finally beat his nemesis. This is outstanding television and shouldn't be missed.

Righteous Motherf*ckers

As we plough our way through classic movies of the 20th century, we found our way to Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction, a movie that almost everybody know at least 50% of but usually forgets the other 50% - not because it isn't good, but probably because it isn't as good as the most memorable stuff. I have mixed feelings about Tarantino films. Some of them are genius, others tedious and dull; this falls into the former category as it tells a series of inter-related stories centring around Vincent Vega (John Travolta) and Jules Winnfield (Samuel L Jackson) as they either circle around or are directly involved in tales from a few days in LA. Ably abetted by the likes of Urma Thurman, Ving Rhames, Bruce Willis, Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth and Amanda Plummer, this has Hollywood themed restaurants, accidental shootings in the backs of cars, fixed boxing fights and gimps in leather. If you've never seen this movie then you need to rectify that as soon as possible; if you haven't seen it for a long time, it still packs a hell of a punch and while some of the circumspect scenes leave you wondering if these people are really like that or just reading a script; but you can't deny it's a classic of cinema. 9/10

What's Next?

It's quiz week again, so our viewing has been curtailed by more interesting things. Next week there's more Daredevil, the return of my favourite TV show - For All Mankind - and we might give Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen a spin, but given the Guardian likes it so much and has been factually inaccurate about it, I'm not terribly hopeful...

There's the season finale of Paradise, which is likely to be our final outing with it as well. It's a show I've wanted to like, but it just feels... like it doesn't really have a story. The countdown to the final episode of Shrinking really begins in earnest and there's always some other thing that creeps under my radar, this time it's the new season of Your Friends and Neighbours. John Hamm is back as the stockbroker turned cat burglar who robs from his neighbours to pay for his lifestyle choices.

Next week's films could mainly be made up of sequels. I think The Godfather 2 might get a viewing (if I can convince the wife), plus there's another Morgan Freeman/Alex Cross load of nonsense to watch and if I'm feeling masochistic there's the third in the 'Has Fallen' trilogy, but after the aberration of the 'London' instalment I might choose to abuse myself instead.

Oh and I saw the trailer for the TV adaptation of the first Harry Potter book and thought it was just a bunch of people recreating the original film but with different actors pretending to be the previous actor who played that role, if you get what I mean? It's out at Christmas. Weekly or in one drop? Who can say.

As usual, blah blah blah. 

My Cultural Life - Echo Foxtrot Foxtrot Oscar Foxtrot Foxtrot

What's Up?

The Oscars, that's what. 

I suppose, this column is essentially both review and critique. I am a critic and therefore I crit. I suppose you could label me a specific type of film watcher, but generally I think my viewing habits - especially with films - are varied and wide reaching. Therefore, I can disagree with peoples opinions until the cows come home, because it's my opinion and I'm sharing it with you. I just want to get that out there and emphasise it's nothing personal.

I seem to be old. I seem to be unable to see the masterpiece inside certain films, which I have never been particularly fond of. Sometimes I can see a good film even if I'm not enjoying watching it - god knows there's been enough of that - but usually I wonder about the opinions of others. Take One Battle After Another, I think it was loud, rambling and utterly pointless. Paul Thomas Anderson's films are largely built around chaotic whimsy. I don't dislike his films, he's a kind of Avant Garde Woody Allen for the 21st Century, but I didn't really like Allen's movies, so... meh.

This particular winner of six Oscars was so memorable, the wife asked me when she saw it had won to remind her what it was about - we watched it 10 days ago. It wasn't funny. It wasn't dramatic. It felt like someone wanted to make a Cohen Brothers movie but had never seen a Cohen Brothers movie. I saw no reason why a film consisting of lots of shouting, peculiar scenes and borderline slapstick would be able to win like that. If [IMHO] the film wasn't really that good, are we talking about rewarding the best films or the best marketed films?

Don't get me going with Sinners. We watched it almost a year ago now and thought it was a strange mixture of post WW1 ethnic poverty and oppression and vampire movie. I didn't see the message. I didn't think it did a very good job of telling what little story there was. It was full of characters and had the rhythm of a modern-day black version of Towering Inferno, but with less jeopardy. 

Except... looking at the list of films nominated for best picture - we've only seen half - there are a couple we have to [can] watch and there were a few we're unlikely to ever watch, so this can't be definitive, but that's a shit selection of 'the year's best films,' isn't it? I can't really remember that many of the previous few years' winners either and if reminded I'd probably shrug. It's like Oscars have become like the Turner Prize for films, maybe crossed a little bit with the Darwin Awards. I don't think it reflects what people watch and enjoy and it probably hasn't for a long time.

Yet, the day after the annual snoozefest, we had my 'favourite' newspaper claiming the Academy Awards are now 'for everybody' and 'have changed for the better'... Really? Because a black vampire film won a couple of gongs? Because Paul Thomas fucking Anderson was finally rewarded for not giving up with his quirky overlong bits of nonsense? The Guardian*, as usual, can go fuck itself. How this newspaper can even call itself a serious commentator of film, when it gives positive reviews to all manner of shit, has been up for debate for a long time. 

* Yes, I know it's an obsession, but tough; it's my column... The Guardian gave Maggie Gyllenhaal's second directed film a FOUR star review and called it 'electrifying' and literally fell over itself to praise actor du jour Jessie Buckley in her role in The Bride, a 'post-modern' reworking of the Bride of Frankenstein as a Bonnie & Clyde gangster movie - yes, that's what it's about. Film fans have been a little less ... accommodating, as it - today alone (Wednesday) - has wavered between 5.8 and 5.9 on IMDB. The reviews have been a little more critical: "Strong concept, thin execution," or "About halfway through The Bride!, I found myself doing the one thing no director wants: checking my watch," or "Did anyone at Warner Bros. watch this film before releasing it?" One reviewer, who claimed they really wanted to like it, called it "Excruciating," while another said, "a terribly slow, misguided, incoherent mess."

But, you know, The fucking Guardian claims it's a FOUR star triumph, in the same month it claims the Oscars are now 'changed for the better,' perhaps the people running the newspaper will give each other reach arounds if this piece of stylised shit gets nominated for an Oscar next year? Suffice it to say, I will not be watching this or even giving it house room...

The only awards I give a minuscule fuck about are ones given to people who have made sacrifices or helped others in the face of adversity. If you have to give gongs out for films, they should be voted for by the people; they should reflect what people like; they should reward acting that makes a shit film average or an average movie good. If I was Michael B Jordan I'd be thinking of all the great black actors who didn't win Oscars for far better performances rather than think of myself as something special.

However, now that they're over we can go back about our normal viewing habits until some cunt mentions the O word just after New Year and the machine grinds its way back into view, yet again...

Trailer Trash

Is it a big thing now when Marvel has a new movie out? It's not like every time you take a shit there's a new MCU film any more, therefore there does seem to be something - dare I say it - exciting about a new feature from the place formerly known as the House of Ideas. This time it's the first official trailer for Spider-Man: Brand New Day and I've watched the trailer three times to give you my thoughts on it... Meh. That's it. Meh. So it has Frank Castle in it. Bruce Banner. Possibly Sadie Sink (she doesn't appear in the trailer, but do a search for the film on something like Duck Duck Go and she pops up all over it). There's the Scorpion - aka Mac Gargan - and there's something wrong with Peter Parker...

So why meh? Well, trailers are supposed to get you psyched up, aren't they? This didn't. This felt a little like we were going through some motions. Nothing reached out, didn't grab me by the balls or slap me around the face like an ancient Tango advert. This felt... meh. This could be a good thing; I mean how often have we watched trailers for BIG films and ended up with disappointment etched on our souls? 

What have we discovered? Well, Parker is still unknown, but Spidey's life seems to have gotten better. He's still lonely and missing his friends. He bumps into The Punisher and the two clearly know each other because Peter calls him Frank. Peter also asks Bruce Banner for some advice, because Peter is beginning to have strange things happen to him, which he doesn't understand and there's a narration over the top suggesting that he is mutating, the way real spiders (apparently) do. There's the briefest of appearances by the Scorpion and the suggestion that Spidey is about to come into direct contact with the Hand (or some other Yakuza-like organisation). Glasgow looks cool though... but... I dunno, I expected something with a little more oomph.

However, while Zendaya is back as MJ, she's also back as Chani of the Fremen in Dune 3, which appears to be arriving about four years earlier than first thought. Denis Villeneuve's third instalment, thus a trilogy, arrives at Christmas and takes the apparent 'impossible to film' Dune: Messiah and makes it the concluding part of the tale, with Timothée Chalamet (sans hair) back as Paul Atreides. This is also a BIG thing and is coming out around the same time as Avengers: Doomsday and is likely to be a huge success. Maybe it's because these trails have caught me on a down cycle in my mood swings or I'm simply growing largely indifferent to any film where I'm supposed to get excited about, but, you know... meh.

It Was Inevitable

We watched White House Down on Friday, so it stood to reason we'd watch Olympus Has Fallen on Saturday. What we didn't know was the latter was directed by Antione Fuqua, the guy who directed The Equalizer movies we've watched over the last ten days; so there's been a link. Olympus Has Fallen is head and shoulders a better film that White House Down. Not only was it tonally right, it was considerably more visceral, ruthless and while neither movie is plausible, this had an immediacy about it that other features similar have lacked. I'm not a huge fan of Gerard Butler - he had just about hit his peak with this - and Aaron Eckhart's star had also... ahem... fallen. However, this was far better than the two main stars. It's now opened the door to watching at least one of the two sequels (but maybe only one, because the second film has a shit rating on IMDB). 7/10

Spousal Abuse

I've never been remotely interested in the film Mr & Mrs Smith; despite quite liking the recent TV adaptation of it, the movie simply never pressed any of my buttons and after finally giving in and watching it, I feel utterly vindicated. I think the wife enjoyed it; I found it tortuous, annoying and largely incomplete. This was a film that was two hours too long [it's two hours long] and I struggle with Angelina Jolie at the best of times - I don't think she can act - and while I like Brad Pitt, I didn't like him in this. John and Jane are both hired killers who don't know their other halves are also hired killers. The laughs were strained; the premise was absurd and when it ended it felt like there was a great deal of confidence there would be a Mr & Mrs Smith 2, because they won a battle but not the war. I just didn't like this. 4/10

True Lies False Truths

Paul Greengrass's Green Zone is a fictionalised version of how some people from the USA discovered there were no WMDs in Iraq and how this was manipulated to allow the USA to stage a full scale war and invasion of the Arab country. Whether the events are true or have been sensationalised for the benefit of a movie I don't know, but I think I probably watched a very close approximation of how some people discovered other people had lied about things and those people were the government and the people who knew this were the CIA and they ended up being powerless to stop it. Matt Damon plays a chief weapons searcher coming to the conclusion he's searching for imaginary WMDs; Brendan Gleason is the CIA man who just wants the Americans to allow Iraq to police itself; Greg Kinnear is the shit-bag administrator from George W Bush's office trying his best to cover his and USA's arse and Jason Isaac plays his enforcer for Kinnear. There was an almost documentary quality to this, but it ended up feeling like the main story was lost - or that might be what it was trying to convey. 6/10

Going Anywhere Soon?

Paradise switched between the outside world and Colorado pretty evenly in the sixth part of the second series. The focus from the inside was Jane, who it appears was the subject of a prophecy when she was born that she would be the person who brings about the end of the world. Jane is the Secret Service 'dumb blonde' who killed her boyfriend, framed the President's girlfriend for killing him and has been playing everyone for her own benefit. On the outside, Xavier is planning on attacking the compound to free his wife, using cobbled together explosives without realising he's also being played. We're hanging in there, but sometimes the plot feels extremely contrived and there's feeling sometimes that the writers don't seem to have a clear direction.

Gung-Ho USA

Two themes are emerging this week in things we're watching: war and the USA. 12 Strong has both of these things in spades. It's the story of the USA's immediate response to the 9/11 incidents; when a team of 12 green berets went to Afghanistan to join forces with freedom fighters to attempt to beat both the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Obviously we all know how that eventually panned out, but I suppose at the time it was an important mission for the USA to be seen involved with. Chris Hemsworth and Michael Shannon are the two notable actors in this as they play Captain and Warrant Officer to a small selective group of soldiers led by Michael Pena. Modern war films are a different beast, even compared to movies of the 1990s; there's a visceral feel and the weaponry is designed to do as much damage as possible, so nothing is pleasant viewing and that old gung-ho feel of a John Wayne war film is replaced by a general feeling of fear and fight. This isn't a bad movie and does a reasonable job of humanising the soldiers. 7/10

Mistaken Identity?

I have never in the slightest bit been interested in Lucky Number Slevin. I remember seeing Jonathon Ross review it back in the noughties and thinking, "that's something to avoid." Yet, here I was, on a Wednesday night, watching it. For the opening hour I was feeling vindicated as Josh Hartnett bumbled his way into two situations he didn't appear to know much about. Was this really a case of mistaken identity? Was he really that stupid? The two crime lords wanting him - Ben Kingsley as The Rabbi and Morgan Freeman as The Boss - were surrounded by a lot of vaguely comedic henchmen and there was always a feeling that we were watching a comedy rather than a drama. Lucy Liu played a slightly ditsy pathologist who fancies herself as a detective and Stanley Tucci as the cop trying to make sense of it; while Bruce Willis, who was prominent in the 'prologue' was most definitely pulling the strings. Then it changed tack completely and while the wife had an idea what was coming, I was hoodwinked and realised the film I thought was a load of shite, was actually a cleverly put together idea that I had somehow missed, because I thought it was about something else entirely. 7/10 

Struggling

There's still an element of treading water in this middle section of the final season of Shrinking. Gaby is grieving and hurting about the death of a patient, especially when she discovers things she should - as the therapist - have been aware of and this subsequently leads to issues with some of her other patients. Jimmy ends up becoming an impromptu therapist for his new girlfriend Sofi (Coby Smulders) and her ex-husband and Paul seems to be babysitting his staff a lot, at a time when he should be winding down. There's maybe now this feeling creeping in that this show is going to simply end with stuff that's been telegraphed happening - Paul's retirement, Gaby may get married and open her own practice and Jimmy waving Alice off to uni and starting a new relationship with Sofi, while the world just carries on, because almost everyone else in this show has had their moments and are moving on. If that's what happens then it fits in perfectly with how the show has gone. I won't be disappointed in the slightest if no one dies and Liz stays perfectly horrible. 

Lewd, Rude and Quaaludes 

I don't usually associate Martin Scorsese with comedies; yes, there are comedic elements in some of his work, but The Wolf of Wall Street is a bona fide LOL film. It is without a doubt the film of the week in the Hall house and I'd forgotten what an absolute gem it was. It's a movie that pulls no punches; it's full of nudity, drug taking and some of the dodgiest things you could imagine on a screen, yet it keeps you completely hooked for its almost three hours. It is both astounding and astonishing, not that it is based on a true story, but because the people involved actually got away with what they were doing for so long with almost complete impunity. Leonardo DiCaprio is fantastic as Jordan Belfort, who became a stock market broker the day of Black Wednesday and took that to become a phenomenal power and influence broker across the USA for over a decade, while simultaneously shoving all manner of drugs into his body. 

This movie also stars Jonah Hill, Jon Bernthal, Margot Robbie, Kyle Chandler, Matthew McConaughey, Jon Favreau, Cristin Milioti, in fact, it pretty much has an all-star cast with people only appearing for seconds when they'd be the stars of their own films. It is also crazy and brilliant as it follows Belfort from wannabe stockbroker to the head of a company that cut every corner, broke every rule and threw every dwarf it could to make its staff millionaires. It is quite an extraordinary movie and thoroughly deserves a 9/10.

Remarkable Man

Several weeks ago, the wife said to me, "I've never seen Gandhi." I realised that I also had never seen this Richard Attenborough epic from 1982. I mean, how do you go 44 years without seeing one of the classic movies of all time? I won't bore you with the details, but actually being able to watch this film took more than just three hours of our time, but instead of watching some action-packed adventure on Friday night, to finish our week's viewing off, we settled down to watch Ben Kingsley and a who's who of stars tell the story of Mohandas Gandhi from idealistic young lawyer in apartheid South Africa in 1893 to his death in New Delhi in 1948. 

I wouldn't call it a work of cinematic genius; it needed to tell far too much. What it was though managed to educate me about the man who transcended specific religions and believed in the power of humanity, whatever religion you followed. In many ways, because this was made by the British, there was probably an element of downplaying the atrocities, especially from the Partition - a holocaust if ever there was one, which may well have killed more Indians and Pakistanis than the Nazis killed Jews; but, you know, the British were responsible for that so it's an episode of history that we don't hear much about. However, there was much more to this than just a chronological march through Gandhi's life, but one got the impression that he did so much and touched so many if this movie had been eight hours long it might still only have scratched the surface to his story. 

I'm going to break with tradition here and not mark this out of 10. It's simply a film that if you get the chance and are not familiar with some of the less heroic parts of British Empire history you should watch. 

What's Up Next?

Daredevil: Born Again is back for a second season - but we all know it's just the second half of the first series. There's also some hints that one of my favourite TV shows of the 21st century might be back on the screens before the end of the month, but I'm not going to tempt fate by naming it, but if you've followed this long enough you'll know it's on Apple TV+ and is an alternate history series about how the USSR beat the USA to the moon and what happened next...

Also, Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen arrives on Netflix. This might be a load of shit, but the reason I mention it is because... [ahem] ... there's a big feature on it in today's Guardian by Rik Samadder claiming it is the latest series from the Duffer Brothers - you know, the guys who brought us Stranger Things - except it isn't. They are credited as Executive Producers, which means their input into this was at a basic production level, It isn't their idea; they don't direct or write any episodes, they basically stumped up some cash... Yet the Guardian, for some reason, makes then the stars of the show and not creator Haley Z Boston (no, me neither). 

Literally an hour before I put this blog to bed, the news arrived that Nicholas Brendon had died, aged 54. To be honest, in a week where Sarah Michelle Gellar announced that the Buffy the Vampire Slayer reboot was dead in the water and wasn't going to be making a comeback, the death of Xander feels like a real kick in the balls. Nick Brendon was a victim of his own success; he never really reached the potential he showed as Buffy's BMF, got into trouble with the drugs and the law and then discovered a few years ago he had a congenital heart condition - which ultimately killed him. It seems like a huge waste of talent and a tragic end for one of the reasons why Buffy was such a great series...

Anyhow... next week is also a pub quiz week, so there won't be a Friday night feature and it could be a thin week of reading material for you as I'm also supposed to be going out boozing tonight. Whatever happens, you'll be the first people to hear about it...