My Cultural Life - Quality Control Buttons

What's Up?

As the Book Festival has now finished and my personal anxiety levels return to where they were two weeks ago (probably a little lower), I've noticed that autumn has also arrived. I mean, how did that happen? I remember discussing with the wife about snowdrops back in January and suddenly we're less than three months away from them again.

Does time speed up? Well, it does as you get older and that's because of one simple thing - familiarity. One year when you are 10 is 1/10th of your life, but one year when you're 60 is just 1/60th of your life. Put it in terms of making the same  one hour journey all the time; where it once felt like an hour - possibly longer - it now whizzes past and you can't believe an hour has gone so quickly. Time is an absolute fucker. no doubt about it.

Brand New Arse?

I have questions. If Spider-Man now works full time as a crime stopper how does he afford to live? Does he now have, as well as sticky hands and feet, a sticky arse? Will we ever find out how Spidey saved Frank Castle on Staten Island? Do we care? In fact, why was the 18-rated Punisher shoe-horned into this, at all? Why did this feel like an extended episode of Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends? How come Bruce Banner now has to inhibit the Hulk - when did that revelation happen? Why has Marvel decided to introduce Jean Grey at this particular point? Why can't Sony make a Spider-Man film that doesn't require a bunch of MCU characters turn up? Why did Zendaya look like she's already had work done? Why did I find Spider-Man: Brand New Day a bit meh? These are the questions I'd like answering...

I know I have issues with Spider-Man, the same way I have them with Batman. Neither character floats my boat, therefore I'm always fighting a tough battle to like them in feature films. However, I don't think it was all Spidey that made me struggle with this; the camera work felt a little 8mm; it felt dark (and not in a moody way) and perhaps the scaled-back-to-just-a-NYC-backdrop required it to have a grittier feel (most of the external scenes were filmed in Glasgow). There's this gnawing feeling that it was too long, too ponderous and too convoluted. Superficiality seemed to dominate this and the only scenes I truly enjoyed were the ones with Peter, Ned and MJ - mainly because I'd had three previous films where they grew up together. I just found this not spectacular enough. The Punisher was homogenised (PG-13 Frank is a bit pants, tbh); Yelena was trivialised (and why the bath scene?); Damage Control was a piss poor villain, even if there were links taking it right back to Homecoming. The roll-call of villains Spidey has put away just added to the sense this was a pointless exercise in trying to do something different yet the same. Spider-Man's mutation problems, the - again - pointless Hulk cameo and the X-Men angle just shat on it from a height for me. Overall, I didn't really enjoy this at all. I might change my mind when I watch it again in a year or so, but at the moment, I think this is almost as weak as the second Tom Holland Spidey film and that was poor. 6/10

Deceptive Title

I've always wondered why The Gentlemen was called The Gentlemen, because it suggests the film is about a bunch of gentlemen and while there are a number of aristocrats in this movie, they are just the fluff around the edges. The story is about a gang of weed suppliers, who just happened to be so wealthy they rubbed shoulders with the 'right kind of people' - they are the Hoi Polloi (which might have been a cleverer title). Except, if you've seen this film, you will know that it's a lot more complicated than that. What it's also is one of Guy Ritchie's best - alongside his Sherlock Holmes double bill with RDJ. Full of delightfully colourful characters, it is a typical Ritchie film, but there's an added surrealism to this, made even weirder by an excellent performance by Hugh Grant, as the seediest of newspaper reporters. Colin Farrell steals the show, while Charlie Hunnam talks in his native dialect and probably normal voice - top quality stuff. 9/10

New Zealand Story

The Taika Waititi film, The Hunt for the Wilderpeople is both hilariously funny and utterly silly. Julian Dennison plays Ricky Baker, a proper little shit who has flopped from one foster family to another until he's down to his last family. Screw up here and the only place left is Juvenile Hall - like prison for homeless kids. He gets placed with Bella (Rima Te Wiata) and her curmudgeonly husband Hec (Sam Neill) and discovers he quite likes it. However, tragedy strikes and Ricky is going to lose his place and so he runs away. Hec finds him, but instead of handing the boy back, the two form a bond and spend six months living off the land and avoiding arrest. There is a villain in this called Paula Hall, which I find quite brilliant and while it is quite ludicrous at times, you will just love it. 8/10

The Green Death

So... after a really intriguing and interesting start, Lanterns fizzled out with a bit of a whimper. It was a strange series and the last three parts have felt like a very long and meandering epilogue to a very undercooked idea. I'm a bit disappointed really because I thought this was going to be so much more and even the 'revelation' in the finale - which, incidentally, wasn't well explained - felt like a 'well, so what?' kind of thing. Will there be a second season? I'm almost loathe to go and look; there's a lot of TV at the moment I'm finding less than inspiring and this has been one of them. Maybe if more had happened...

Checkmate

Back in the Covid era, one of the most popular shows on TV/Netflix was The Queen's Gambit, a series we didn't watch and our general ambiguity about Anya Taylor Joy didn't help matters. We ploughed through this 2020 series and it has been extremely entertaining, if a little on the cold side, but when your subject is chess and your main character is basically on the spectrum, then you're going to struggle with emotional impact. The story is about a female chess prodigy, who with her unique brain and tranquilizers manages to work her way up the chess ladder, so by the mid 1960s she's regarded as one of the best players in the USA - but that isn't enough for her as she sets her sights on the USSR. It's a solid mini-series that puts a lot into making chess a sexy game.

Goodbye, Good Riddance

Hopefully, the final episode of Ted Lasso has been and gone. It had a strange finale, one full of sentimental shite and bollocks. I can't fathom why they thought it would be a good idea to bring it back. The finale was like some awful pantomime acted by a bunch of wankers.

We also gave Australian comedy show Gnomes a try and switched it off after 14 minutes. 

Under Pants?

Having a TV show set on Newfoundland is a brave move. It is a unique part of Canada and distinct for its Irish heritage and isolated, backwater, communities. Below is the story of a fishing community being asked to relocate - and being offered a lot of money to do it - and all the while something from the deep has returned and it's not to be sniffed at. This is a strange show; Josh Hartnett is up to scratch as the fisherman with a bleak history who also thinks the community might be on the verge of being terrorised by a giant squid. We'll conclude this six-part series next week.

Against the Grain

Among my friends, I am completely in the minority when it comes to Jeremy Clarkson and Top Gear. I totally get it, I should abhor Clarkson. He's the diametric opposite of me in so many ways; I don't even like fast sports cars - I grew out of that when I was 14. Yet, I will defend him - to a degree - and will defend my right to enjoy things he does. The thing is, the wife should be even more vehemently opposed to him, yet she's pretty much the same as me - worse, she even watches his Millionaire shows. I concede that this blog is designed as a critical review page and if something I review doesn't float your boat, you're not going to watch it on my recommendation. I mean, look at my music taste?

However, that doesn't prevent me from talking about things none of you are interested in... If you're reading this and have made it this far its as good a win as I can expect. Therefore, I'm not going to try and convince you to watch anything Clarkson related, because even if you did you wouldn't change your mind. What I will say is it's fairly obvious to me why Top Gear hasn't ever reached the heights it had when the classic trio were at the helm; it's also clear why Amazon's new look Grand Tour needs to develop its own personality or it's simply going to become another failed attempt at catching lightning in a bottle. Top Gear with Clarkson, May and Hammond was unique. It was a version of Last of the Summer Wine disguised as a car programme; as it became this monster hit for the corporation, it became more 'scripted,' stopped being a consumer programme and joined the ranks of mega-successful light entertainment show. It was must see TV for many. Things usually have to have something to be watched by millions, especially back in the Noughties.

Its appeal was far reaching - young people even watched it. The idea of three middle-aged men of various personalities thrown together doing crazy things and thoroughly enjoying it and each others company, is just television gold if you get the chemistry right and this got the chemistry very right. 

This is a short week (as you've probably guessed) as I'm quizzing on Friday, but it's actually been a week of slightly curtailed viewing as well, because we've had things to do and I discovered a new rabbit hole to fall down. I've been watching Classic Top Gear compilation videos on the Tube of You and realising why this particular format will never be repeated. These guys had almost 20 years together; the relationship between presenters matured and became extremely comfortable over that period of time; even the scripted stuff felt genuine, because it has been consistent for so long - Classic Top Gear and the original The Grand Tour worked because of the presenters not because of the format.

There's also the fact that some of the things they got up to were simply very funny and there wasn't really anything you could compare it to. I think that's why it's easy to watch an old episode, even from 20 years ago, and still get something from it and that might be that the three guys you were watching knew a lot of stuff you were learning for the first time. Yes, it was a bit too tonally on the right, but never in an aggressive way and far less than you'd expect - after 2016, they always talked favourably about Europe and how stupid we were to have left it - even Clarkson, more so than the others, really. 

This trio of presenters were the last of the 'bloke-ish' television era and the only reason they were so successful for so long - other than being good TV - was because they were, as mentioned before, unique; there was nothing comparable and imitations simply don't have the ingenuity built in. It was why their road trips, whether they were TV specials or just racing across London on a bike, bus and a boat, we were sold on the idea that these were just 'yer average bloke' having a great time. It's probably why people associate Farage with normal working geezas - but let's not go there...

In other words, I've been watching old Top Gears and I've enjoyed it. Sue me.

What's Up Next?

Oh, the things I could tell you...

VisionQuest arrives on Wednesday, I think. I have a slight wish for something interesting and, hopefully, good. Marvel is a constant source of disappointment for me, now. I'm still slightly in shock at how utterly ambivalent I am about the new Spider-Man film was and the thoughts I had, all the way through, such as 'why is this a load of shit?' or 'It just feels so false.' which suggest I was anything but ambivalent about it. The thing is after the initial shock I just had a moment when I realised it isn't going to get any better, and I've been ambivalent about it ever since. VisionQuest just looks like it might be relevant, so it won't be and I'll be spitting teeth in six weeks or so.

We're going to be finishing stuff this week and there might be other new stuff, it is the season for new stuff. I just recall reading one of these articles on line - a feature about TV coming in the autumn and being underwhelmed when I passed the stuff I was happy about it. You know the drill.

My Cultural Life - In (Sur)Real Life

What's Up?

I have this theory. It's a theory that might only appeal to a handful of you, but I'm not going to let that stop me... There's a scene in Fantastic Four: First Steps which feels almost throwaway, but I think is deliberate. Reed Richards casually mentions that he's aware of the multiverse and then we move on; no dwelling, no explanation, just a line in a film. Fast forward to the end credit scene with Franklin and Doc Doom - as soon as Sue sees who it is, she drops her guard. Is this because Doom is - at that point - a friend and ally of the FF or is it because she immediately knows the person dressed as Doc Doom isn't Doc Doom?

I might be reading too much into this, but I like clues and the next one I offer is the unveiling of Robert Downey Jr as Doc Doom at the SDCC in 2024. He was just one man in a sea of Doc Dooms... Any of them could have been Doctor Doom, but only Tony Stark would announce his own entrance that way.

Fast Forward to July and David Harbour is on a late night chat show - something like Jimmy Kimmell - and when he's asked about Avengers Doomsday he does something either inspired or really against MCU rules. He turns to the camera, puts on his finest Red Guardian Russian voice and proclaims: "Tony Stark is Iron Man," And says nothing more. Is this just his little joke or was he actually giving away a major plot point?

We know trailers are devious, have red herrings and erase things from scenes. We know trailers are clever at blindsiding us and we also know something else - Iron Man is the Marvel Cinematic Universe. None of the others, not Cap, Natasha, Hulk or Thor, are MARVEL. They do not start and end this universe like Tony Stark does. In the MCU, Iron Man is your starting point and he is Disney's USP.

If you're bringing the band back - with some probable exceptions - you're not going to want your main man sitting this one out, are you? So how could we possibly have the impossible happen? Simple, really. This is a multiverse and how many of them will have an extant Tony Stark? Infinity War/Endgame might have only happened in one of the multiverses or it might have happened in billions of them. It's the entire point of having a multiverse (sadly).

What if the Doc Doom with Franklin at the end of that end credit scene was that universe's Tony Stark - genius, inventor and friend of the FF? What if Tony was bringing news of Victor Von Doom attempting to destroy the entire multiverse in punishment for something that happened as a result of Endgame? But why's he dressed as Doom though? Maybe because this universe's Reed and Tony know that the MCU we watch have lost their Tony Stark, in tragic but heroic reasons and it would be easier if the FF and Doom turned up here saying there's some other Doom, from another earth, who is a proper apocalypse bringer, rather than trying to explain why there's more Tony Starks than you can shake a stick at. The obvious thing about this ruse is that it's going to have to fail at a part of the film when Iron Man is needed the most, to add to the massive surprise.

This means someone else is Dr Doom and given I don't expect the real one to have much to do for two thirds of this film, then it doesn't really matter who plays him (Cillian Murphy is someone a lot of speculation has been around). 

The extra footage at the end of Avengers Endgame Encore ends with the sound of hammer on iron - the noise of Tony Stark beating metal into the very first Iron Man outfit or forging a Doc Doom mask? It's almost like they're hitting us over the had with all the subliminal Iron Man references. This is where I'm putting all my theories this autumn - that RDJ is just pretending to be Doctor Doom and we're having an Iron Man reunion in December.

Disclaimer

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

Death Comes to Richmond

In this week's thrilling episode of When Keeley Loved Roy, someone dies; someone who is dead is acknowledged as dead and we discover who the nasty bitch who is trying to buy Rebecca out is. Naturally we all knew it would be Tracey Ullman, because why is she even in the series if not to fuck someone over. Meanwhile Keeley is up the duff and avoiding raw fish, alcohol and high blood pressure. On the pitch the girls win a game, get promoted and lose their striker again, but find another one down the back of the sofa. Next week is the season finale, which I was led to believe would be the end of it - full stop. There is nothing on Wiki about there being a fifth season, so I presume that Ullman buys Richmond, kicks Keeley, Roy, Rebecca and Ted Lasso out and they all live happily ever after doing something else. Stay tuned...

The Test of Time

Midnight Run has been a staple of the last nigh on 40 years. The comedy starring Robert De Niro and Charles Grodin is classic 1980s, but also the kind of movie that turns up late at night and you end up watching it, because, you know... The thing is it's still a great comedy, even if some of it feels of another age now. The story of a bounty hunter taking a wanted man across the country to appear in court as a witness for the prosecution against a big organised crime boss should be simple, but as with all great American road movies of its era, nothing ever is. Unlike other films of its ilk, Grodin and De Niro never really become buddies, which might be why it's so much better than other movies with similar themes. It's worth watching if it's on late at night and you don't have to get up in the morning. 7/10

In Sickness

Having finally broken the streak of Matthew McConaughey films we haven't enjoyed, I fancied another trip down AIDS Lane with Dallas Buyers Club, a movie where McConaughey took method acting up to an entirely different level. He lost 40lbs to make this film and Jesus, does he look sick in it. Playing Ron Woodroof, a good ol' boy heterosexual grifter in Texas, the last thing he ever expected was to catch the 'gay disease' but years of unprotected sex, drug taking and putting his pecker wherever he felt ended up a death sentence for him. When he tries to get on the AZT program being trialled, he fails and ends up in Mexico, desperate for anything to prolong his life. There he meets Dr Vass, who had been struck off and was working with Mexican AIDS victims using experimental treatments. This gives Ron an idea; ship these drugs into the USA and sell them to other people in the same boat. To get around this, they create a club - the Dallas Buyers Club - which provides meds at a fixed rate but is not FDA approved. This is the story of how one man helped the entire gay community in the 1980s when the rest of the USA was only interested in protecting its pharmaceutical rights (and paydays). 8/10

Black Holes

The penultimate episode of Lanterns was not what I expected and went places I didn't see coming. I have a theory about who killed Hal Jordan, but at the moment I don't have much of a motive, apart from everyone hated the former Green Lantern. This was all about John and Hal's hologram trying to come to terms with the situation and John's unique ability - which was hinted at way back in episode two. 

Shark Attacks

The difference between a Simon Reeve country-based documentary and a Simon Reeve eco-friendly documentary is the latter are missing that certain something that make some Simon Reeve programmes great, while feeling like they just need to get on with it. In the second of Simon Reeve Wilderness, the affable reporter is in the Sea of Cortez, which is full of stuff but is pretty remote and has some hammerhead sharks. There is no jeopardy about these shows - last week they found a tree kangaroo, this week some sharks. It all feels like it's missing something.

Morally Ambiguous

As entertaining as it was, I had issues with Law Abiding Citizen because the 'hero' of the movie was actually the villain. This is obvious from the beginning - Jamie Foxx is an ambitious and determined lawyer who doesn't lose cases, so when he negotiates the life of a murderer who raped and killed a wife and child down to a three year sentence, Gerard Butler - the husband - isn't happy about this. Butler is a kind of CIA bod and he can kill people, very cleverly, so when he targets anyone who had anything to do with his family's deaths, it becomes a race against time to stop him from enacting a horrific revenge. Like I said, Foxx is depicted as an honest and driven lawyer, but he allowed a very nasty man to walk away from prison after time served for the benefit of his great record as an ADA. I know who I was rooting for. 5/10

The Fart Gag

Interstate 60: Episodes of the Road is a movie I'd never heard of until earlier this week. I would have thought that a fantasy with a very reasonable IMDB rating would have fallen on my radar, but it didn't, until now. James Marsden is a disillusioned wannabe comic artist whose father wants him to go to law school, his girlfriend is more into psychoanalysing him than supporting him and the only person he gets any real support from is his sister. However, on a birthday meal out, Neal Oliver makes a wish, one that falls on the ears of OW Grant - a mythical man who is believed to prowl the backroads of the USA giving wishes to strangers, the way a genie would. OW is played by Gary Oldman, with bright red hair, a bow tie and a Leprechaun-like sense of mischief. He [ahem] grants Neal his wish, which takes the shape of having to deliver a package somewhere along Interstate 60, a place that simply doesn't exist. This is like a modern Alice in Wonderland and it is very entertaining, but what elevates it from a medium score to a higher one is the fart gag. It happens unannounced, you don't see it coming and it will floor you. 7/10 

Unreality TV

The two totally fantastic things about The Truman Show are when it was made - 1998 - and how prophetic it was. Obviously, this is a very dark comedy, but if you strip away Jim Carrey and the massive façade, you're left with the birth of reality TV. It's possible that the concept of reality TV was already firmly rooted in the world of entertainment - are documentaries not reality TV? The thing was TV had never toyed with the idea of Live, Moment-by-Moment, Total TV, so Peter Weir's film introduced us to it and allowed it to escape Pandora's box. Nearly 30 years after its release and reality TV is cheap, binge-able and has an audience, who even by today's standards, are nailed on - exactly at it was depicted. There was even a nightly 'chat show' format featuring cast members and technical staff in a format we're now extremely used to - celebs talk content. The film, despite Carrey rather than because of him, is magnificently grim and as the story unfolds, you start to see how wrong everything about The Truman Show - the TV show inside the movie - is; from the corporate ownership of Truman Burbank to the inappropriate and extreme lengths some cast members have to go to keep the show's producer - Ed Harris - vision on message. About halfway through it starts to become a psychological horror story and that opens up sooooo many other distasteful aspects. The thing is it isn't a very likeable thing; there's a coldness about it which is totally in tune with the subject matter, but makes it a tough thing to appreciate its potential genius. 8/10

It's Not Goodbye

A mate of mine said when Gary Lineker left MotD, "Don't feel sorry for him. His Podcast company is making millions; more people watch his stuff on line than on the BBC." Since then a few people have quit 'BBC' life - comfortable TV mainstays - for the world of personalised programming.

This morning (Friday), I've just read some of Marina Hyde's final column at The Guardian. She's essentially quitting writing for the paper to concentrate on her twice-weekly podcast she does with Richard Osman. She's getting five times the audience and getting paid a lot more money. Good luck to her; I read her column about as many times a year as I read books in a year, so it's no great loss to me and that's probably the main reason for her leaving - people no longer care as deeply about things as they once did.

I'm recommended podcasts and iPlayer stuff all the time; I even tried the Well That Went Well podcast that Tom Walker and Geoff Norcott did during the summer, but I grew less interested in it as it went on, when I realised that I didn't really like either of the men or their beliefs and that Jonathon Pie is a creation of Tom Walker, not necessarily Tom Walker. I just don't get the format the way younger people do. I'm just old fashioned in my viewing habits, even if I have tried to be less ... long in the tooth.

If I didn't watch the Tube of You and sometimes click on links posted by trusted friends, I would never have discovered the aforementioned Pie as it would never have been on TV and maybe that's why TV is dying, because the stuff that is being watched on line has no TV equivalent. Mainstream Media is so corporate now that going into podcasts and social media at least gives you the freedom you didn't have, because we know what happens to our TV celebrities if they so much as sneeze at the wrong time. It's anodyne and outdated, but I struggle to give it up. Gen Z will, because they already have. It's an option rather than a requirement; it's never been that before.

Anyhow, just because someone we like or know disappears from our screens, no longer means their careers are over; they might just be starting.

The Liver Guys

Hmm... Runner was simultaneously what I expected and nothing like what I expected. The Australian setting felt odd; the comic book villains were mildly ludicrous (plus, the version I watched only had Italian subtitles, so all the Spanish was all Spanish to me) and despite a 100 minute run time, it felt like it was never going to end. Talk about getting as much bang for your buck as possible. Alan Ritchson plays Alan Ritchson; this time with tattoos and grieving a dead daughter and failed marriage. He is a delivery man - a specialist courier - charged with getting Owen Wilson to the Gold Coast with a liver, to save the life of a nine-year-old girl. This is a film that throws absolutely everything possible at you from nurses prepared to kill children to OTT violence that could have walked straight out of a Warner Bros cartoon. It was all right; nowt special and Ritchson is going to end up playing a superhero, isn't he? 6/10

What's Up Next?

Today - publishing day - is the second Saturday of Book Festival; just two more days of stress to go. Maybe in the coming weeks I'll explain why it's such a stressful 10 days for me, but until then you can take that to the bank.

There's new stuff on TV; apparently the new Spider-Man film will be available from Tuesday and I'm sure there will be even more to talk about...

Until then, the usual claims and disclaimers...

My Cultural Life - How Low Can You Go?

What's Up?

In the last few weeks I have had an abundance of wild mushrooms, runner beans from my garden plants, new season Golden Wonder potatoes, freshly picked apples from friends' trees and a host of other harvest season delights. The wife had hot cross buns for her breakfast on Sunday morning... Yep, it's September.

One of the best things about May is fresh English asparagus. Not this imported rubbish from Peru or Mexico, which has no taste and has travelled more food miles than most of us will ever travel. Also in May, June and July there are Jersey Royal new potatoes and both these vegetables, if you want seasonal, are available for a limited time and that's what makes them so special.

You can buy strawberries, raspberries and other soft fruit all year round; we import so much fruit and veg from other countries that the idea of seasonal has all but disappeared. One of the joys of the past was waiting for the special seasonal treats to come along and having lots of them - overdosing on the splendours of our own harvests.

Capitalism has ruined this for most of the our seasonal treats. We can always buy something that's similar; something that is now cultivated rather than growing wild; pale imitations from a different country, satisfying someone's needs or desires. If it's autumn here, then it's spring somewhere else and vice versa. 

I remember talking about seasonal food around the time of the Brexit vote. People complaining that we would have to be more reliant on our own food production and I saw this as one of the only benefits of leaving the EU. Except, that didn't materialise. We still import so much food from all over the world and we wonder why the world is burning.

I live in a place where many people, who probably would be called New Age Hippies, champion and campaign for locally grown or made produce; encourage and promote growing your own food and buying locally and I suppose that's one of the brilliant things about living in a place like this. My dinner today is going to consist of potatoes grown 25 miles away, runner beans grown 25 feet away, a cauliflower grown in Ayrshire and a main course that does involve some food miles, but was constructed in my kitchen, by me and not bought, pre-made, in a supermarket. Too many people in large towns and cities have forgotten how to be local and that's to their detriment...

Disclaimer

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

The Breakdown

It has been over 30 years since I last watched Falling Down, the film which, I think, cemented Joel Schumacher's career as one of Hollywood's top directors and featured the talents of Michael Douglas and Robert Duval. It tells the story of a  fragile, possibly mentally-unstable man  - Douglas - driven to the edge of his mind by the injustices he sees every day; finally breaking and lashing out against mankind. It also tells the story of a retiring police officer - Duval - who in his own way is dealing with the same daily problems as Douglas. This was a groundbreaking movie when it came out because for more than half of the film Douglas's character was almost seen as an anti-hero, a man pushed over the edge by a rapidly fracturing society (so imagine if this film were made in 2026 instead of 1993?). It is dated, but only in its look and feel, the themes are probably just as prevalent and relevant today and while Douglas's character tips over the edge in full blown psycho mode, you can't help but root for him at times. 8/10

Falling Down...

[Did you see what I did there?] ... About two years ago, I heard this expression; 'fallen down an Instagram rabbit hole' and dismissed the idea as some ludicrous Gen Z nonsense. Then I discovered that falling down an Instagram rabbit hole is much easier than you can imagine and robs you of time like nothing else. The thing is, Insta has become my go to place for films; there are loads of clips of movies on there and the algorithm has worked out that I like watching clips. So about 50% of the movies we've been watching recently are ones that Instagram has played a part in. It's just a sort of recommendation thing; if a film has a lower than 6 IMDB rating then I'm going to avoid it - mainly - but it has turned up a few things I wasn't even aware of, so the procedure, while alarmingly time wasteful, does have its uses. Just, for the sake of your soul, don't go there unless you want to lose yourself in it...

Bad Optics

I've got to be honest, there is an element of Lanterns that I'm not getting, although I think I'm following it a little better than the wife. The reason for this is, I think, my understanding of the Green Lantern Corps, which I actually believe you need to have an understanding of to fully appreciate what is going on - with the internal Lantern politics, etc. The mystery aspect is quite simple; the town of Rushville hate Green Lanterns because Green Lanterns were responsible for the end of prosperity in their town and the destruction of so much of it and the deaths of loads of people. It didn't matter to them that the Manhunter they were harbouring was a galactic fugitive, she brought peace and wellness to their community and therefore the Lanterns were to blame, even if she caused much of the death and destruction. This sixth episode is the start of trying to find out how and who killed Hal Jordan - something we've known since the epilogue of the opening part. Despite it being a pivotal episode, it felt a little like a scene setter, even with a guest appearance from Guy Gardner.

Smooth Operator

There have been two albums in the 21st Century which have firmly been regarded by me as two of the best. Sea Change and Morning Phase, both by Beck, an artist I have never liked. However, these two, arguably Gene Clark influenced, albums have been remarkable additions to my record collection, with the latter of the two one of my favourite albums of all time. Dreamy almost country themed beauty, full of fabulous songs and toe-tapping brilliance. So when I heard about Ride Lonesome I immediately thought about getting it and also started to worry that Beck might not score a hat trick. As I said, I don't like Beck's work; I don't understand it. Every album he's released - apart from the three mentioned - just makes my blood curdle. I don't get it. But give him an acoustic guitar and some country lite themes and you get true works of genius. This album is no exception and on the first few listens, I'm wondering if it might actually be the best of the three. It will take a lot to shift Morning Phase but this doesn't appear to have a weak track on it, even the one I like the least is still pretty fucking awesome. It's strange that an artist so well known and commercial should fall onto my eclectic radar, but if it hadn't have been for my mate Tony, I would never have found these gems. An astounding piece of work that deserves a 10/10.

For Heaven's Sake

In just over a month, Paul Bettany will be back on our screens as Vision in the first MCU/Disney series for a long time. Back in 2010, he starred in a really quite dreadful biblical apocalyptic tale called Legion. He played Michael, a fallen angel, who comes to earth to protect a pregnant woman from the wrath of God, who will send an army of angels, possessing human bodies, to kill the woman and her unborn baby. It also stars Denis Quaid, Adrianne Palicki, Kevin Durand and some other people, all being set up for some kind of horrific fall. It's a film that starts, gets to the middle and then ends later on. It makes little sense until it starts making no sense and then it has an implausible ending. It has a poor rating on IMDB and was on Film4 last week and I just felt compelled to record it and watch. I should self flagellate next time I get these urges, maybe wrench my eyes out with pliers. 2/10

Risky Business

The wife and I have been vegetarians for a long time; over 35 years for her and just over 30 for me, so watching a movie about the rise of McDonalds didn't seem to be the most suitable Saturday night viewing, but The Founder proved to be one extremely interesting biopic. Michael Keaton played Ray Kroc, the man who discovered Dick and Mac McDonald's new 'fast food' restaurant in San Bernardino, California, 14 years after they opened it and turned it into what we see today, a company of questionable ethics that literally sell more burgers per minute than you will take breaths in your lifetime. The really interesting thing about this is for the first half of the film, the story of how Kroc persuades the slightly naïve McDonald brothers to franchise their business using him as their manager seems like a really great example of the American Dream, but the strange thing is where you expect this to end up almost like a 'paid content' advert for the burger kings, it starts to get nasty and Kroc turns out to be an absolute shit burger. A man so driven that he screws just about everyone over to get what he wants. It's an absolute eye-opener and I'm sure The McDonald's Corporation were not happy with the end result. You will be. 8/10 

Share Option

In this week's thrilling episode of The Roy & Keeley Show, there's a special guest appearance by Ted Lasso! He's not saying much, yet he's putting across a stoically benign stand against upset women. Higgins discovers someone is aggressively buying up shares in Richmond FC and Rebecca thinks it's her ex-husband, who, of course, is now dead. Not her fictional husband, but the bloke who plays him in the TV show, thus causing a temporal rift which threatens the entire existence of the WSL League 2. There's a couple of ludicrous scenes with supposedly wide cars and as we edge towards the season finale, Juno Temple's tits are just bursting out of this week's dress. Film at 11.

The Nice Face of Racism

A few years ago, I noticed the wife had programmed the set top box to record Hidden Figures and I asked why? "I don't remember seeing it," she said. "We watched it a few years ago." But she recorded it and we watched it a second time. A couple of months ago, I saw the pre-programmer had Hidden Figures highlighted to record. "We've seen that quite recently," I said. "It's a good film, I thought we'd watch it again." So we did. Three times in about ten years is pretty good going. It's such a good [read: seen numerous times] movie I can actually quote lines from it, now. It probably romanticises how it was really like for these black women in the early 1960s, but it does give the impression that racism at NASA was mainly indifference with a dash of indignance and the black women didn't mind it, really, because it was like that in the USA. Which, might have been how it really was for most people when black, brown and any other race other than white was treated like dog shit, but I doubt it. It's still a great film. 8/10

Huh?

Every so often, I sit down and watch something and it simply disappears. I either don't feel any kind of connection or it has so little affect on me that I actually, physically, struggle to write something about it. Danny Boyle's Trance is one of those films. It lost me very early, I struggled to stay awake during it and at the end I didn't care what I'd seen. Made in 2016, this is the story of a heist, or is it? James McAvoy might be forgetful or he might be trying something on. Rosario Dawson gets her kit off and Vincent Cassel acts very badly (literally, not metaphorically). It's about memories, psychotherapy, hypnosis and bullshit. It felt like a music video at times. I wouldn't watch it again. 2/10 

I'll Be Back

The barrel is being scraped. You're watching it in real time. Each week, another entry in the 'WTF?' column. You, the reader, getting to an entry and thinking, 'Huh?' Is this some kind of punishment he's giving himself? Who can say? But I watched Terminator: Dark Fate and realised two very important things. Linda Hamilton cannot act to save her life and Terminator movies are an absolute donkey swamp of turds. There is no purpose for them and they should have been stopped. They aren't entertaining or interesting. AI taking over the world is far more sinister. 2/10

What's Next?

Well, that would be the Wigtown Book Festival, which is currently underway and will still be when next week's blog comes out - although that will be the second Saturday and the end will be in sight. It's not that I have any problems with the Book Festival, apart from the way it takes over the town for two weeks and feels like the town is a hindrance rather than the venue. That might have to do with the people who, oddly enough like me, have nothing to do with the book side of where we live. Wigtown is much more than a venue for a literary festival that the BBC has never deemed to exist, but ITV does a feature every year. It will be what it always is and it's also going to be greener...

Nope, not as in energy, but in colour. By the time the Book Festival rolls around, autumn is in full swing and we get shite weather to compound it. This time it's like summer is hanging on for dear life and it might not be particularly warm, but it's not been cold either. We have an awful day of weather forecast for Sunday, but the rest of the coming week seems to be very reasonable. Good weather brings more people out...

Anyhow, that means the wife is on long days and early nights and this will no doubt be born out by whatever shite we watch this coming week.

My Cultural Life - We Can Never go Home

What's Up? 

I don't think I've see social media so hateful as it is at the moment. I remember the first 'social media' places - AOL and Usenet, back in the early to mid 1990s and these places were full of bitter, twisted, nasty pieces of work. Yet, despite bans on bad language and abusive words in many of today's open forums, we seem to be living in an age where personal attacks are perpetrated on an hourly basis and others' support behaviour for this is growing exponentially. 

I use X (or Twitter as it once was) for up-to-date info about Spurs for the fan page I run on Facebook. I created an account that is never used for anything but access, I follow my football club and nothing else. I have no followers. Now and then I'll have a look at the feed, bearing in mind X has no idea what I'm interested in other than football. It is a cesspit of hatred, all allowed by Elon Musk in the name of freedom of speech - a kind of 'if you can't stand the heat get out of the fire' place that has ballooned over the last three years since I shut down my proper account. 

I'm genuinely puzzled why famous people, sports men and women and companies want to have an X account, considering the majority of the people on there are just hate filled balls of rage? It also amazes me that people can abuse others with impunity. If I said half of the things I see on X in real life, I'd expect to go to prison, but where once we had arseholes hiding behind a fake account, we now have real people spewing vile diatribes and owning it to the point of being proud to be called a racist. Right wing supporters, whether they're politicians, media commentators or just ordinary folk seem to have reclaimed 'racism' and now wear it as a badge of Britishness [Read: Englishness]. 

It's not just that; Reddit, Discord and a couple of others are there to house the worst kind of people, free in the knowledge they can say whatever they want and no one is going to pursue them and many more will click like and make them feel justified. I wrote a blog about two years ago about why I thought social media should be shut down; how it is a horrible place that foments hatred and extremism; yet, many reasonable people thought the idea was crazy, because while they saw hatred they didn't get involved so they were all right, Jack. Perhaps I suggested the entire internet needed to be shut down, but even if that were impossible, it would be nice if having comments sections and places for people to interact with likeminded others was stopped. It's how the far right has become a serious threat to humanity and how subjects such as climate change can be so easily dismissed.

Sometimes I think that if you had a time machine then perhaps preventing social media from being created would be far more important than killing Hitler or Margaret Thatcher...

Celebrate

We did something 'normal' last Saturday night. We went out for a meal, with some friends, to celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary...

40 years... Actually it's 43½ together, if I want to be precise. We did the courting thing for three and a half years before tying the knot. As I've repeatedly said over the last 25 years, at least, she would have been released by now had she done the sensible thing and killed me.

I sometimes am amazed I made it this far. I'm 64 and we lost my mum at this age and I have had a crappy year of illness - pretty much all the fault of a negligent dentist back in December, when I told him about a tooth that was giving me gip and he told me to use Sensodyne toothpaste. Six months later, with a raging and ingrained gum infection, another dentist felt that I needed to be relieved of the offending tooth and still didn't think I needed any antibiotics... "Oh it should clear up now you've had the tooth removed," he said, but a week later I was back and being given penicillin - which didn't really work.

Four different courses of antibiotic later and I was free from infection for about a week before it came back, but the last three months - nine if you count the preamble - have taken a toll on me, so actually getting out with friends for a good night out felt a lot better than perhaps it might have done.

The worst thing though is the ongoing infection has robbed me of my sense of taste and smell again, this time almost all of it has gone. I can just about taste sweet things, but they're bad for me, so... The wife was complaining about the dog's arse the other day and could not believe I couldn't smell it. I actually said I could smell something, but I couldn't. The annoying thing is up until I got really fucked up by the gum infection and the way it migrated throughout my body, it was starting to come back and I reckon I had about 33% of it back. I'm forgetting how to be optimistic...

Disclaimer

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

Not Jurassic Park

So, one of the 'big' films of the early summer made it to my TV. The End of Oak Street is essentially a film about dinosaurs. Set in 1982 - for some unexplained reason - the residents of a two mile radius area of an undisclosed (until the end) city are transported back in time to one of the eras that had dinosaurs in it. What follows is, in a strange way, a film that seems to have a similar premise to that woeful load of shite I watched a few weeks back called The Last House, people essentially trapped in houses menaced by whatever is outside. This, however, was better than that and was almost entertaining, until the end when it got very odd and a bit timey-wimey. Actually 'odd' is the wrong word, it goes from being a borderline comedy to being a bit 'What the Fuck?' to being quite puzzling. I have seen much worse than this, but I've seen a lot of stuff. Euan McGregor and Anne Hathaway (looking like she's had work done), were star quality leads, the special effects were good, it was a Bad Robot production, hopefully there won't be a sequel. 6/10

What Happens Now?

Before it started the wife turned to me and said she hasn't been enjoying Lanterns because she doesn't really understand what's going on and that was a relatively fair assessment because I wasn't entirely sure I knew what was happening either. I think the John Stewart standalone ep didn't help, but this week we got a number of answers and an episode that was full of action and death. It was more like a finale than a fifth (of eight) part. A mate of mine commented recently that he felt the portrayal of Hal Jordan was something of a disservice to a true hero of the DC comics universe and for a while this episode put him back up there with your Clark Kents and Bruce Waynes, but there was still this arsehole feel about him, even if he knew what was happening even though no one else seemed to. To be honest, I don't know where this will be going for the final three episodes, especially as the entire story seems to have concluded, with just an explanation as to what the epilogue of the first part meant. I've enjoyed it, but it's thrown a real bewildering curveball at us.

Amused to Death

Tucked away, at the back of one of the bookcases, was a paperback novel written by Stephen King, one I'd forgotten all about and one I'd never read. Joyland was one of the Hard Boiled Crime Fiction novels he wrote back in the 2010s and like the last few King books I've read and thoroughly enjoyed, I had to wonder why I had never read this, because it was fantastic. A girl called Linda Gray is murdered in the amusement park called Joyland's house of horrors, her body dumped where no one could see it. The police never found the killer. Four years later Devin Jones gets a summer job working there; he's escaping a painful break-up with his first love and needs to get as far away from New England as possible. He's taken under the wing of two carny regulars, one being the fortune teller, who it seems might have something genuine about her. However, it's Mike Ross who is really the psychic; a young man, dying of muscular dystrophy, reads minds and has premonitions and as Devin gets closer to undercovering the killer, it's disabled Mike who holds the key to his survival. This is a cracking pulp story, with an heartbreaking ending and it keeps you guessing right up to the end (except, I had a gut feeling about the killer almost from the start and I was right). Highly recommended.

Prophesy 

Brad Bird's Tomorrowland is really a warning wrapped up in an adventure sci-fi movie - if we don't stop the way we're going the world is going to end and we won't stop it. The fact this film was made over a decade ago and we're hurtling towards the end of the world faster than expected, you'd think this film should be shown on a loop to all the major leaders of governments and corporations, just to show them what might happen and how fast it could happen. However, this isn't a movie about the world coming to an end - except it is, but that doesn't really become clear until towards the end - what it tries to be is an action adventure about a teenager, Britt Robertson, who just happens to be very very clever and her quest to find out how to go to Tomorrowland after she's given a pin that transports her there in mind, but not in body. George Clooney is someone who has been there, but no longer is allowed there and together they avoid nasty robots and all manner of unusual stuff to return, where they face Hugh Laurie and his desire not to save the world and allow it to die. Like all the other Brad Bird films I have seen, this is really good, although I expect it has a low-ish IMDB rating because Americans don't like being preached to about how they're fucking up the planet. 7/10

Zero Intelligence

I'm not sure what made me think that any film with Kevin Hart might be worth wasting my time on. Maybe because Dwayne Johnson was in it and it was higher than a 6 on IMDB. Maybe because I thought - based on one clip I saw - that it might be a good action comedy. In the end, as it finished, I said, "Well, that was a load of shit," and I really meant it. I'm not even sure I want to tell you what Central Intelligence is about. It did make me laugh a couple of times, so I suppose it wasn't as shit as it could have been. It was obviously very much played for laughs, sadly there wasn't a lot of them. 4/10

Edward Lariat 

I'm fairly sure Ted Lasso has reached a nadir. The latest episode was dog poo, pure and utter. Dating apps; on-line self help bollocks; twattish footballing agents; squabbling girls acting a quarter of their ages and poorly handled relationships - this had almost everything that is annoying. Admittedly, I felt pretty crappy when I was watching it, but I almost want to give up on it now.

Nope, Still No idea

25 years ago, I watched Mulholland Drive and this week, I sat down, watched it again and still don't know what the fuck I watched. It's classed as a 'mystery' in most descriptions and that is certainly what it is, although I may be taking it a little too literally. The film starts off with Laura (I really can't act) Harring being taken somewhere by two men in a car; they're obviously going to kill her, but some reckless boy racers crash into them, killing the two strangers and leaving 'Rita' concussed and with amnesia to wander off into the city, where she ends up sneaking into someone's flat and passing out under a table. Cut to Naomi Watts's Betty arriving in LA to become an actress. She's naïve and trusting and is staying in her aunt's flat, which just happens to be the place where Rita hid. She moves in, finds Rita in her shower and lets her stay until the other woman admits she's lost her memory. What follows is the two women first trying to solve the mystery of Rita and then embarking on a lesbian relationship. Meanwhile, there are a lot of unrelated scenes - a film director who is struggling to get his movie made; a hitman screwing up a job, a couple of guys in a diner doing weird shit. After this more things happen, but with about 20 minutes of film to go, Betty disappears, Rita finds something a mysterious key fits into and suddenly Betty is Dianne and Rita is Camille. Many of the characters are still in it, but in slightly different roles and then it ends. This is, of course, a David Lynch movie and I figured after 25 years I'd maybe get more out of this than I did when I first watched it, but sadly it left me feeling as though I'd lost two and a half hours of my life, yet again. I know this is classed as a classic, but I'm not sure why. 3/10

Nostalgia, Eh?

Once upon a time, my favourite band in the world was Genesis. I've been to see them at least 13 times and probably half of those were because I went hoping they would play old songs. By the middle of the 1980s, I had just about given up on the band; I still called them my favourite band, but that was more out of loyalty than reality. Whenever they released a new album, I bought it more in hope than expectation and by the end of the 1980s I had moved on from them. About two years ago, the BBC had a Genesis Night and one of the programmes was Genesis Live in London 1980, it was from the Lyceum in London and I was there, with my brothers and my dad. It was about the fifth time I'd seen them and they were probably at their live pinnacle. I occasionally listen to the band now, preferring the Peter Gabriel era, but often listening to live stuff from the early 1908s. Watching this, which was mainly old stuff, was like being transported back to some of my happiest moments as a teenager - I was just 18 when this concert happened - and this brought back memories of a time when things were simpler and everyone I knew was going to live forever. 

Fate of the World

When I first saw this movie I thought it was quite brilliant. The second time I still thought it was superb and the third time I still think it's one of the best, most intelligent kids' movies of all time, even if of the 97 minute run time about seven minutes are a bit New Age Hippy Shit - this is at the start and the end, but it does work even so. The Last Mimzy [sic] is fantastic; it blows my mind that this could be a film aimed at young people and was released with a U certificate. It has a pretty good cast - Tim Hutton, Joely Richardson, Rainn Wilson and Kathryn Hahn - two really likeable kids and a sinister side that I obviously find another example at distasteful US heavy handed bullshit - even if they exit stage left pretty quickly after the crazy finale. Two kids on Easter break find a strange container on the beach which contains some even stranger artefacts, including what looks like a psychedelic mermaid's purse, some rocks, a slate and a children's toy rabbit - the Mimzy [sic] of the title. These things interact with the two kids, altering their minds and making them super intelligent, capable of more mind-blowing things. What they have to do is find a way to transport some DNA to the future to save humanity, all the while freaking out the adults, alerting the US government and it's done in such a way it's a rollercoaster of a great family film, maybe a little too clever for young ones, but certainly treating the audience like they have brains. It's possibly one of my favourite films of all time, hence why I've now seen this 2007 feature three times (and I could probably watch it again). 9/10

Puzzled?

There are so many things wrong in Ludwig it's amazing it has proved to be so popular. I suppose, like Ted Lasso, it dispenses with realism for the sake of the idea, but despite the slightly corny first season, this second one has been moving along at a pace, regarding the actual plot, yet still feeling like it's plodding, setting itself up for a third series. I never watched Jonathon Creek, but I get the feeling that that series was all about the magician solving crimes using his knowledge of how to deceive, whereas this series is about turning murders into puzzles so that David Mitchell can solve them. Season two has newer characters and just as many plot holes as the first, but there is something slightly annoying and even more implausible about it now, but at least John Taylor is no longer pretending to be his police detective brother James and is now a crime consultant in Cambridge where there appears to be more murders than Midsummer. We've just finished the series which ended with an entire episode focused on the plot and pretty much telling us who the true culprit to this extensive and labyrinthine conspiracy is and setting up the third series as an us versus them type show. I have to say that despite all the dreadful plot holes and liberties taken, the conclusion did a great job of leaving us wanting more...

Chaos Meandering

Despite the poor IMDB rating, Chaos Walking wasn't as bad as it could have been, but it was slightly annoying. Tom Holland plays a loner-type young man in a male-only colony on a new world - a unique place where all the thoughts of the males are transmitted openly and therefore there are no secrets. There's a mystery as to why all the women in their settlement are dead; were they killed by the indigenous lifeforms or is there something more sinister afoot. Into this falls Daisy Ridley, whose ship crash lands near this settlement, killing everyone but her and she must first escape the men - who think she will bring people to destroy them - and find somewhere so she can transmit to her mothership. Holland helps her as they cross country to find what they need, while being chased by Mads Mikkelsen and his settlers. It was originally intended to be the first part of a three book adaptation, but presumably it didn't do well at the box office and that franchise died. It was okay. 6/10

Spaces of Amazement

George Clark is back with Amazing Spaces, this time focusing on small homes for first time buyers rather than the follies and foibles of previous series. The opening episode focuses on two extremes of the 'Tiny House' fad - a woman from Solihull, who spends £50k having a small house built in Wales and a 17-year-old who spends just under £3,500 building his own house out of a refrigeration unit in Shropshire. The latter is bigger and better looking than the former and was built 99% by the lad, with his mum helping with the painting. it was one of the most remarkable Amazing Spaces I have ever seen on this show and the kid was rightly proud of his efforts. The rest of the programme was filled out with interesting houses in the Netherlands and a couple of Will Hardie goes large ones. I expect next week we'll be back with the usual theme of 'how much did you go over budget?'

What's Up Next?

The first part of next week is going to be taken up with trying to get to the bottom of my ongoing health issues, having spent two-thirds of this year either struggling with gum infections and the headaches that come with it, or the secondary infections that have arisen from it. Dentist on Monday, doctor on Tuesday and hospital on Wednesday. Hopefully I'll get to the bottom of this shit year, health wise, because I'm fast running out of patience...

As for televisual entertainment, I expect it will be a week of whatever we decide to watch, which means you'll read about that.

In the immortal words of my Phil on the Beach vlogs - FOT.

My Cultural Life - Expect the Unexpected

What's Up?

The 'in thing' for the last twenty years or so has been social conditioning; subtly preparing us for the next shit thing to happen or the next major shift in how we're supposed to think. The current racism problem in this country is down, largely, to social conditioning from the media, mainly, but it's always going to be some form of media that stokes the lies that stir up the anger.

Social conditioning has also prepared us for increases in prices, despite evidence to suggest that our prices have gone up considerably more than other European country's prices; we keep getting the Ukraine war, the Iran war, Covid and any other reason why we're paying more money than the French (or any other Western European country) for almost everything. [I have a couple of friends who live in France and both seem aghast at what we're paying for things they pay a fraction for].

The latest example of social conditioning is this advert, starring kids, telling us to save water, when we should be having adverts telling us to rebel against water companies, who flood our waterways with ours and our neighbours shit while paying their shareholders record dividends. Or rallying against all these data centres that are going to make water scarce because AI needs it (and gas) more than we do.

I mean, are you not offended when you see TV adverts telling you to save water, when we see water companies literally shitting and stamping in it while ensuring their shareholders get paid money, even though they then go to the government and say 'we haven't got enough money to fix things, we need to increase prices!' How can they give shareholders record dividends if they have failed to fix all the problems they've systematically created and then ignored for 45 years?

We should be getting angry about this snow job, not conserving water just to have the piss taken out of us because CEOs of water companies think we're all fucking stupid (and the reason they do is because we just lie back and take it up the arse from them, usually with sewage as lube)...

Disclaimer

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

The First of May

The latest Ryan Reynolds movie has arrived and that usually means an entertaining couple of hours with little to think about and Mayday is very much that, or at least it is on face value. It's a strange thing, having Kenneth Branagh playing a hard man ex-KGB agent with a USA fixation, kicking Soviet arse while keeping a wounded behind enemy lines US Naval airman out of the hands of his former bosses. I mean Branagh is 65 and a thesp, so he must have enjoyed the role and he certainly looked like he was. Reynolds, on the other hand, apart from the occasional moment when he was pure Ryan Reynolds, seemed a little muted; he was almost the straight man to his distinguished co-star. In the end this is a relatively straightforward buddy movie with a few snipes thrown in about the US government and its forces - which Ryan probably doesn't have a problem with being that he's Canadian. It was entertaining, yet didn't really feel like it was much at all. 6/10

Man of What Exactly?

Perhaps the wife and I have a form of collective dementia, this is because we watched Superman Returns on the 2nd May 2022, that's less than four and a half years ago and it felt less familiar on Sunday night than it appeared to be in 2022 (16 years after we'd first watched it). What I will say is that like my review of it, in a proto version of this column, is that it's a direct sequel to the much-maligned Superman IV - The Quest for Peace. I will also say that in the alleged five years that passed between the aftermath of that final Christopher Reeve outing and this solitary Brandon Routh 'cameo' is that Lois Lane managed to have a baby - spoiler alert; it's Superman's - and got about 25 years younger than Margot Kidder looked. Kate Bosworth was quite awful as Lois, whereas Routh was actually quite respectful of Reeves and, as I've said before, Kevin Spacey was excellent as Gene Hackman, I mean, Lex Luthor. 

I really didn't remember much about this at all; the saving the airplane scene and a couple of little bits later in the film, but generally it was like watching a movie I'd seen a lot of trailers of. Supes is back after going in search of Krypton; Lois has moved on and is living with Perry White's nephew and the moment Clark returns shit starts happening that requires him to act. Luthor has managed to con a wealthy widow out of her fortune and, here's the thing, there's a lot in this that had variations in the most recent Superman film. Luthor finding the Fortress of Solitude and using what he finds against his sworn enemy; unleashing something that threatens to tear Metropolis in half; the general tip of the hat to the original films. it was like James Gunn saw Superman Returns and thought, "I can make that again but better." This really is a curate's egg of a superhero film. 6/10

Dragon's Teeth

There's a review on Goodreads that slightly confounds me. It essentially gives Peter Straub's horror novel Floating Dragon two stars, and likens it to a Stephen King novel that was written FOUR years after this and calls this derivative. This is possibly the scariest novel I've ever read; it is unrelenting; it is Straub's magnum opus - even if many people will say his Ghost Story is his greatest work. This is maybe the fourth time I have read this book and I always find new things, and, probably more importantly, due to age, more understanding of things. There is, after all, a 15 year-old, two 30-somethings and a 76 year old in this - the heroes - and all of them get their day in the sun, so to speak. Floating Dragon is an epic story of an evil that has plagued a town in Connecticut for several hundreds of years, but is at its worst every 100 or so; usually when all of descendants of the town's founding fathers are assembled. This time the last of their lines are all back in Hampstead, at the same time as a secret chemical agent has accidentally been released into the atmosphere, which settles over the town - whether by accident or by design. 

What follows is one nightmare after another, as the chemical DRG and the spirit of the town's worst nightmare - Gideon Winter - go about their nefarious ways. The chemical is changing the people; killing some, distorting others and probably all of them are suffering the worst LSD type existences you could imagine; while the spirit of a man originally killed by the founding fathers of the town, has resurrected himself inside a man beyond repute, who is systematically butchering women across the town. I used the term 'unrelenting' and that is what it is; there is no middle eight, no interludes or easing off; the town of Hampstead and its surrounding suburbs are bombarded with horror upon horror, to the point you have to pinch yourself that this was written in 1982 and not more recently, when there is a pressing need for films and fiction to have as much overload as possible. It is probably one of my three favourite novels of all time and there are more ideas in this novel than there are in almost all of Stephen King's oeuvre. If you ever see this book in a second hand bookstore - buy it; if you like horror stories, you will not be disappointed by any of it.

Splattered

Normal programming was restored in episode four of Lanterns, as Hal and John returned to their mission to find the Manhunter that is being protected by many of the residents of Rushville, because it has provided health and wealth to the town. It's certainly an interesting scenario, with all manner of people wanting this ancient alien renegade dead, but a lot of people prepared to put their lives on the line to protect it. Both Hal and his 'trainee' have encounters that you maybe didn't see coming and there's a very graphic scene with a cow. The issue though is the rapidly deteriorating relationship between the bitter and twisted Jordan and the driven Stewart. The Guardians have a clear idea, what is strange is the roundabout way they're going about it.

Vicious

I've seen a lot of Shane Meadows movies, but I'd never seen Dead Man's Shoes, starring Paddy Considine as a former army NCO returning to his home town to exact revenge on people who were nasty to his brother - Toby Kebbel. This is a short and extremely visceral film that has Meadows trademarks writ large all over it. Obviously a low budget feature, it follows a group of low life scumbags as they drink and take drugs in a run down council estate, somewhere in the North Midlands, and then find themselves falling onto the radar of Considine's Richard. This is a film that pulls no punches and has no compromises at all. 7/10

The Cliffhanger Quarter

I started to review this season of Chad Powers last week and got two episodes into a six part series. I mentioned that it seemed to have forgotten it was a comedy and I now see that this was deliberate. In fact, this has been a superbly dramatic second season, packed with jeopardy, some almost gentle comedy and one episode that was so LOL I thought I was going to have an aneurysm (that's episode four). The story of a failed football star making a comeback disguised as a hillbilly redneck was crazy in it's opening season and in many ways was even crazier this time around as Chad not only had to keep his identity safe, he became the focus of a lunatic he helped create, in Jerry, the reserve quarterback. This has been one of the best shows I've seen all year, I mean, even if you don't understand the game it has been quite astoundingly good. I had a feeling it might conclude, but what happens is we're set up for an even more disturbing third season as Chad's secret is now known by someone you didn't expect. This has been excellent TV.

Fish Nor Fowl

The last half decent film McG has made is also probably the last half decent film that Kevin Costner also made. The thing about 3 Days to Kill is there's a really good film in there struggling to get out. The main problem is that it's trying hard to be a comedy and it didn't really need to be one. it could have had some humour in it, but it tried too hard to be something it clearly wasn't and that spoiled what could have been a solid movie. Costner plays a CIA op who is diagnosed with cancer and has about three months to live. He decides to try and reconnect with his daughter - who lives in Paris - but is waylaid by the woman who was lead on his last CIA job, who wants him for another - final - job and dangles an experimental drug that can prolong his life in front of him as bait/incentive. The action is excellent, but the tone of much of the film is just terribly off key. Hailee Steinfeld plays Costner's daughter and she's okay in this, if a little too scripted and a stereotypically teenage film character. 6/10

Awkward

Having a New Year's Eve episode at the start of September felt a little out of place, but that was the least cringeworthy thing about this week's Ted Lasso. This was a three-pronged affair, with Ted and his ex-wife having NYE in the local pub; Beard and the ladies' team having NYE on a boat moored in the Thames, hosted by Tracey Ulman's utterly annoying character and Rebecca, Keeley and Roy reunited with Jamie Tartt at the launch of his new vodka, which ended with Roy buggering up his knee and being rushed to hospital where his new girlfriend came to his aid. This was an episode where something awkward happened in every prong. I know there are people out there who like this, but it's not very good, it makes some 70s sitcoms seem sophisticated and I'm getting a vibe that suggests this might not be the end of this series at the conclusion of these eight parts. However, if that's the case, it might be the end for me (unless there's a Roy Kent spin-off and even then I'm not absolutely convinced).

Dem Bones

This doesn't have spoilers in it, but I am going to give you my hypothesis based on the opening episode, so if you're going to watch this you might want to skip this review, but I will tell you that by the end of the opening episode you will be thinking exactly what I'm thinking because there's little or no subtlety...

The last time we saw Patrick Brammall in a TV show it was Evil, where he played the lead's often estranged husband. He has since appeared in Colin From Accounts, which I'm told is wonderful TV. We decided to give Last Seen a go; it sounded like it was our cup of tea; the story of a former police officer turned dispatcher whose daughter was abducted 11 years ago, who is informed that the remains of a three-year-old child has been unearthed by a landslide. The rest of the episode watches him slide off the rails and introduces us to a subplot, which seems to be as obvious as the nose on anyone's face. By the end of the opening episode you have worked out that the remains of the child discovered are not going to be Brammall's daughter because she is obviously living with a couple out in the Boonies. The interesting thing here is that the child's remains had Brammall's daughters clothes left near them, in a plastic bag, so they would not deteriorate and, presumably, would point at the clothes and the bones belonging to the missing girl. I think this is the series in a nutshell; quite how it's going to go on for another five episodes is the mystery for me.

Yes, it wasn't bad for an Australian TV show (it did come out on Apple TV+) and I don't mean that as an insult to Aussie TV, honest, but while it was a relatively harrowing opening part, the sledgehammer revelations at the end of the episode makes this a tough one to call. We have the second part to watch, but I got the impression the wife wasn't that enamoured with this and if that's the case I kind of understand why. However, if I've already worked out what is going on then that might be exactly what the makers hoped for and have a massive twist waiting in the wings... I'm just not sure I care enough about it to hang around to find out.

The Return of Bat Bane

The third and final part of Christopher Nolan's Batman Trilogy is bloated and overlong. There's so much unnecessary stuff in it he could have trimmed almost an hour off of it and it would still have been a little on the long side. In many ways it's really anti-climatically dull, with things in it that felt forced - Catwoman, the faux Robin and the killer twist at the end. Bane - interestingly played by Tom Hardy - after coming across as an unstoppable force, was despatched a bit too easily and the entire denouement felt badly plotted almost from the start. You've got 3000 police officers stuck underground, unable to get out; yes, they were given food, but where did they shit? What did they wear? Did they spend months in the same clothes? How come none of them had beards? Why did Batman still insist on talking gruffly when the only people he was talking to were people who knew he was Bruce Wayne and if Joseph Gordon Levitt could work out Wayne was Batman from a brief encounter with him when he was a kid, how come no one else did? In many ways it was worse than the first part because any promise this had went in the same place as the Gotham PD's poo. 6/10

Kosmic?

It's been 13 years since the last proper Stellardrone album; that was Light Years and it's still one of my favourite albums of all time. Stellardrone is a Lithuanian guy called Edgaras and he's released a shedload of stuff since the mid noughties and all of it is free. It's essentially space ambient music and his albums all seem to have a space-y theme, although not one track has any vocals. His long-awaited eighth album arrived a few weeks ago and, not counting the Between the Rings EP in 2017, I started to think there would never be another release from the man. Kosmos starts with one of the best tracks the guy has ever recorded; a slow start ramps up to several BIG crescendos and leaves you elated at the opening and expecting something remarkable. However, that's where the problems start, because the rest of the album is almost disappointing; it kinds of blurs into each other and there's nothing that reaches out and grabs you quite like the opener - Transcendence - does. It's not bad, but it's also not awesome. I've had it on constant rotation since its release, but it kind of disappears into the background a bit too much. I mean, I listen to Stellardrone because it is euphoric space ambient music and it's excellent background noise, but Kosmos just feels like my expectation has been left wanting. 13 years is a long time to wait for the follow up to one of my favourite albums to be just a bit average and given my age and the frequency he now puts music out, I doubt I'll see another release in my lifetime. 7/10 (reluctantly)

The Tragedy of Tarzan

It has been over 35 years since we last watched Greystoke, the Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes and while there's a lot to unpack with it, it still is essentially a sad and tragic film; not least because it was Ralph Richardson's final movie. The first thing is despite some incredibly questionable animals in this - such as a jaguar (native of South America) and flamingos (in the jungle) - it is a stunning looking thing (mainly filmed in Cameroon) and 42 years after its release it still looks extremely good. The next thing is how utterly preposterous it is, yet, because the film is treated like a piece of high art, some of the slightly ludicrous moments are fully accepted because this isn't a cheap movie. 

I expect if it was made today Andy Serkis would play all the apes, there would be a loin cloth almost from the point John Clayton II first appears - there is a lot of pre-teen tackle on show at times - and they'd probably cast an English speaking lead with a lot more muscles than Christopher Lambert. The thing is it's a really great film and it's so desperately sad - everything John loves is wrenched away from him and in the end he chooses to return to the wild, leaving his friend - Ian Holm - and his fiancée - Andi McDowell - because there's nothing in Edwardian Britain he wants. The special effects were state of the art in the early 1980s and while they look a bit dated and like men in chimp suits now, back in 1984 we looked at this film in awe. I've always had a soft spot for this and, of course, Lambert went on from this to make the wonderfully camp and outrageous Highlander. 8/10

What's Up Next?

Slow Horses is back, but I won't be reviewing it for at least six weeks, because we like to binge watch it. We're going to start on season two of Ludwig (despite many saying it's lost its mojo) and there's more Lanterns, Lasso and I think there's another old favourite returning as well.

I have managed to find a bunch of films to add to the Mystery Stick, although a couple of them may well be there for a while before I can bring myself to watch them.

I'm sure I will have something to moan or whinge about. 

I also expect the world to still be here - just.