My Cultural Life - Cheese Creatures versus Super Adrenaline Monkeys

What's Up?

When I worked at the Youth Offending Team back in the Noughties, I worked with a lot of different young people who had broken the law in one way or another. I had a policy, I never looked at a young person's file until I'd met them first. I didn't want any prejudices to cloud my judgement, I wanted to make an opinion of that person before I knew what they'd done wrong.

This was how I met *John. I visited him in the accommodation the YOT had found him, miles from his home town. He was a nice lad, coming up to 18, polite, well-spoken and not really the kind of kid you'd imagine who would get into trouble. John was on the sex offenders register. At 17 he'd slept with his 14 year old stepsister and within a week of that happening, she'd reported him to the police and the law took over. John was sentenced to a two year order and placed on the register for 10 years.

When you look at these facts, you'd struggle to feel any sympathy for him. He wasn't a special needs young person; he'd got eight GCSEs and several of his teachers actually appeared in court to give character references. John was the perfect 'client'. He did everything that was expected of him, kept a low profile and, to my knowledge, never got in trouble again. By the time he was in his early 20s he'd started his own company and I'd often see his van around Wellingborough and Kettering. He ended up with half a dozen employees and if you didn't know about his past you would have thought he was just a young guy who made something of himself...

After John's conviction, his stepsister made allegations against two other men and we discovered that she was something of a 'bad person'. She made an allegation of rape against a neighbour when she was 16 and her 'vulnerable' history began to unravel. When she was 15, social services took her out of the family home because she was classed as a danger to her stepfather and her younger brothers. The further allegations she made were dismissed and John's conviction unfortunately wasn't quashed because he had admitted to having had sex with her. He said to me in one of the few occasions he actually talked about his step sister that he thought they had loved each other and that they would be together forever.

John's life was put back on a proper course. As his own boss, he has never had to disclose his offence and he would have come off the register almost a decade ago. The thing is, over the last few years sex offenders have been rightly vilified, but as John's story attests, not all sex offenders are evil people; some make the wrong decisions, some are coerced into doing something and while I personally believe paedophiles and violent rapists should be castrated, the general public often don't know the story behind the offence. Therefore, as we've seen in recent days, the press and a large part of public opinion seems to want sex offenders to be castigated for ever. Murderers are rehabilitated, but sex offenders (and arsonists) are tarred for life.

I have believed, since working with young offenders, that many of them should never have gone near the criminal justice system. I worked with kids who were convicted of what we called 'survival crimes'. Young, homeless kids, who would steal food from supermarkets (or even supermarket bins) and would end up with a label attached to them that might never go away. I firmly believe that if John had offended in the last few years and his 'crimes' had somehow become public he would never have been able to have achieved what he did. I firmly believe that if people in parts of Northants knew that the bloke who fixed their plumbing had been a convicted sex offender the least they would do is not employ him; the worst is almost unthinkable. 

The way the press stirs up things and social media promotes mob rule, what do we do, as a race, when circumstances are unknown? Do we turn our backs on certain offenders and leave them alone, alienated and without any support, because we're worried that we might get labelled as 'paedo sympathisers' or 'woke lefties who don't think about the children'? There are often two sides to every story, but in 2026 people seem quick to ignore this.

Ask yourself this: How would you look at John and how do you think the mob would look at him if all they knew was he'd had sex with a 14 year old?

* John was not the young man's name and he wasn't a plumber. He was one of the least offensive young people I ever worked with.
On the flip side of this, there was a 16-year-old child from a rural village in Northants, who stole a car while drunk, lost control of it and drove it through a garden and into the front of a house, destroying many things. His victim was a pensioner who had recently lost his wife; the car destroyed many of his cherished memories and because this irresponsible twat was a first time offender and came from a well off family, the magistrate sentenced him to a 3 month referral order (the lowest order that can be issued) and one that doesn't go on your permanent record...

Flash Barry

I'm sorry, but The Flash is a bloody excellent movie and I don't care who disagrees with me. In the future, when people can get past Ezra Miller being a dick, they will look at Andy Muschietti's movie and nod with appreciation - it is a fantastic comic book film and one that sticks very closely to how and where the original Flash comic book went and the impact that Barry Allen had on the DC Universe. I have a soft spot for Barry, even though I can probably count the number of Flash comics I've read on one hand. I never really liked the character until the late 1980s when Marv Wolfman and George Perez (both men I have had the pleasure of meeting and knowing, briefly) created a comic book called Crisis on infinite Earths, where Barry died in one of the most tragic, heroic and pointless deaths that has ever befallen a superhero.

This film's premise is simple, Barry wants to travel back in time, change the past, save the life of his mother and prevent his dad from being framed for her murder. This is the part of the film that I think many struggle with - how and why did Barry's mother actually die, other than being stabbed. There was never a real murderer suggested, it's like she stabbed herself just as her husband walked through the door. That aside, Bruce Wayne (1) - Ben Affleck - warns Barry that changing the past will have countless effects on the now present, the butterfly effect will come into play. But Barry ignores this sage advice and goes back in time, and prevents certain things from happening and effectively creates a massive paradox loop...

Barry finds himself in a new reality, having created a multiverse, and his mother is alive, but he's only 18 and really stupid and immature, This is also a reality where General Zod, from Man of Steel tries to terraform the earth and make it into a new Krypton, but there's no Superman. So Barry and his younger self try to track down the Justice League of this reality, which is essentially Bruce Wayne (2) Michael Keaton, reprising the role he last played over 30 years ago. With the help of an alternate Supergirl, the four of them try to stop Zod and his army. At the conclusion of this, Barry is left with one choice and not one he wants to make. It ends up with him meeting Bruce Wayne (3), who is still his friend, but is now the George Clooney version and that's the last of the spoilers, because one day you will watch this film and realise it's much better than people think. Ezra Miller is superb as the Barrys and while some of the special effects are as dodgy as fuck, the majority of them though, in the action sequences, are superb - it's during the circle of endless possibilities where they struggle. Anyhow, I rate this film highly, which is why I give it an 8/10.

Hit and Run

Guy Ritchie's 2021 action thriller Wrath of Man is slightly off-kilter. It's told in chunks, each overlapping the other, but with a distinct timeline. Jaysun Stayfum plays some bloke who takes a job with a security firm and almost immediately makes himself a bit of a hero by thwarting a heist in clinical fashion. But this isn't the opening sequence, that is a heist that does go well for the people committing it, but there are some deaths. What we have here is a story told from differing perspectives, with Stayfum actually playing a Londoner - but just who is he? It's one of those movies where whatever I say is going to act as some kind of spoiler, so what I will say is it's not what you would expect from your usual one-man-army feature and when Stayfum plays a Londoner, he seems to be able to become an actor again. It's not brilliant, but it has enough twists and turns in it to make it a cut above the average. 6.5/10

IMDB I Love You

I have avoided some dreadful movies thanks to IMDB. However, I have also watched some stinkers that IMDB's reviewers have rated highly. I have never seen anything with as low a rating as Melania. Well done IMDB and your reviewers. Take a bow. 

Trailer Tra...

There wasn't an awful lot that floated my boat from the Superb Owl trailer bonanza. Spielberg's Disclosure Day is bound to be good, his alien films usually are (but this looks a bit... I dunno... done before). There was some extra scenes added to the Supergirl teaser and this now feels like a Guardians of the Galaxy film with a girl in the lead and no Guardians. Ryan Gosling's comedy sci-fi Project Hail Mary looks like it might be fun, but Gosling is to comedy what I am to being a blonde Adonis and The Adventures of Cliff Booth is the only thing I'm looking forward to, because we both loved Once Upon a Time in Hollywood despite it being a Tarantino movie. The others? Nah, not for me.

Utter Bilge

Our second Guy Ritchie film of the week was an absolute load of confusing shite. It was poorly made, obviously filmed in London, with plenty of English actors, despite supposedly being somewhere in the USA and Jason Statham had hair and a beard - which was a little disconcerting. The film, Revolver, didn't get a hugely positive review when it came out and I can see why. It involved a gambler, some dodgy geezas (don't they all?) and other elements which might spoil it for you should you be fucking stupid enough to watch it. We both struggled to follow it in places; there was lots of strange sequences, some involving animation, others having the same scene played out in different ways. The acting was abysmal and it ended extremely abruptly, which I'm not complaining about as it should have ended abruptly about two hours earlier (which would have been about two minutes before it started). Utter shite. 2/10

The Big Bang Wassname

I think the Adam Driver movie 65 is much maligned. It has a 5.4 rating on IMDB (which I wasn't aware of until after we watched it) and while this is faintly ridiculous movie with a silly premise and felt a little like watching a man wander into death trap after death trap without a second of self-awareness. It was also a bit of fun. I mean, it had a lot of dinosaurs in it, and conveniently it had some bad boys, like the T Rex and as we all know from those dreadful Jurassic Park sequels, no one dislikes a big dinosaur...

The thing is, this isn't a bad idea. Humanoid alien from another galaxy gets knocked off course and crash lands on primitive earth, a few days before the big asteroid fucks the planet up and kills off most of the dinosaurs. His cargo of humanoids is lost and just one pod remains - containing a little girl and, of course, our hero - Driver - has just lost his own little girl to an unknown illness. It's essentially a survival movie, which has more pitfalls and pratfalls than an episode of The Walking Dead but with dinosaurs rather than corpses. I have seen much worse and one can only presume it's got a low rating because it was made with money and took itself a bit too seriously. Still a fun thing to watch. 6/10

A Loki Love Affair

Apart from being a load of shite, the thing that spoiled Thor: Love & Thunder was the lack of Loki. This week's dip into the MCU's past brought us to Thor: The Dark World, a film that I could actually write an awful lot about, such as it being the first in what would end up being a theme in the God of Thunder's later three films - tragedy. This is the movie that Thor's mother dies; the next one Odin dies and the most recent one Jane Foster. Thor's plagued by those he loves dying. I mean, take Avengers Infinity War, even Loki dies in that. Everywhere Thor goes death follows.

This second outing for the God of Thunder is much maligned and frankly, like Iron Man 2, it deserves a lot more love. Yes, there are sections in this that feel a bit too comedic, without actually being funny; some of the supporting characters are either underused or shouldn't have been in it and given the seriousness of the story, it feels a bit frivolous at times. However, it is a good film because of Tom Hiddleston's Loki. Written in character again after that awful rendition in the first Avengers film, which if anything should be etched on Joss Whedon's headstone that 'He fucked up Loki.' Loki is brilliant in this, heroic, deceitful and always the best character on the screen whenever he's on it. Oh and I have to point out that Fandral, the dashing blonde haired swordsman friend of Thor, is played by Zachary Levi - aka Shazam - but you'd never see it unless you know he plays this part, because he doesn't look a thing like you'd remember him.

The Dark World is the story of a dark elf called Malekith, who wants to plunge the universe into darkness, but Asgardians get in the way. The villain, played by Christopher Ecclestone, is really just a cypher to introduce us to another of the Infinity stones. Bits of this feel as though the MCU was still just feeling its way; that it had an idea but it was still embryonic. It's far better than the 6.7 rating IMDB gives it and far more important to the grand scheme of things than people thought. It's a movie that deserves another, careful watch. 8/10

Dear John...

I first discovered Michael Dorman in the fantastic For All Mankind, so I was pleasantly surprised when he turned up as the lead in a 2015 TV series called Patriot, some of which I talked about in a previous blog. This is one of the funniest, most surreal pieces of television I have ever had the pleasure to watch. A show where lots of random shit happens and yet eventually it makes total sense. We have just concluded watching the first of the two series and while there has been a slight suspicion that we might have seen some of it before, it was one of the best TV shows I have seen in a long time. Dorman plays John, a CIA 'specialist' who has to do a job for his security chief father - Terry O'Quinn - but it requires him to do it without CIA help or cover. It involves getting $6million to a puppet candidate in Iran, who would be president but also 'working' for the USA. So John gets a job at a pipe manufacturers in Wisconsin to enable him to take the money to Luxembourg, to deliver it to an agent of the Iranian who is aligned to the CIA. The problem is one thing goes wrong and that has a domino effect that means by the end of the first series there's a Japanese puppeteer, some Brazilian Ju Jitsu experts, an all-female homicide department, a car accident, a folk duo, some duck hunts and a man who wants John to kill him. You will not watch a better, more twisted TV show this year...

Two Thor to Thit Down

Right. I'm going to make a definitive statement. Thor: Ragnarok is the best MCU film of the lot. It has everything - tragedy, comedy, action, peril, jeopardy and redemption. It also has the Hulk and, of course, Loki, who I declared as my favourite MCU character, ever (except in Avengers, because Avengers he was badly written). I find it remarkable that Taika Waititi could make such a brilliant movie and then follow it up with such an abysmal film, because Thor: Love & Thunder is probably the worst MCU film and there have been a few stinkers over the years. Ragnarok is almost perfect as an action/comedy/ adventure superhero film; it has everything and even has an epilogue full of menace.

For those of you who might not have seen it, it starts with Thor defeating Surtur, returning to Asgard to discover that Loki - not dead - has tucked Odin away in a retirement home in NYC. A brief cameo from Doctor Strange sees the brothers head to Norway where Odin shuffles off this plane of existence, releasing their sister Hela who plans to destroy everything and regain the Asgardian throne. Before Thor and Loki can do anything they are kicked out of the Bifrost and find themselves on an alien world where Thor meets up with old pal The Hulk before they enlist the aid of a failed Valkyrie and return to try and save the day. It is relentless, yet still manages to tell a great story, have excellent quiet moments and have a villain who is as nasty as you can imagine. The special effects are fantastic and it has absolutely everything you want from a superhero film. 10/10

Babies

After what I thought were two slightly underwhelming episodes of Shrinking to kick off the third and final season, episode three came crashing back with an absolute brilliant episode full of laughs and poignant reflection. We meet Jimmy's dad, played by Jeff Daniels, in what seems like inspired casting and Paul - Harrison Ford - is beginning to realise that he hasn't got long for this world and his friends are beginning to realise the same. Brian is about to become a father and as usual has most of the funny lines and Christa Miller's Liz is both hideous and fabulous at the same time. Yes, there's way too much neighbourly love and it's full of larger-than-life people, but it's still one excellent TV show and it's episodes like this that will make me miss it terribly when it's gone (and to think I didn't even fancy watching it when it started, I just felt that as an Apple TV+ show it was worth giving it a chance, and boy was I right).

A Bunch of A-Holes

In a week of superhero films, we ended it with a revisit to The Guardians of the Galaxy (Volume 1) and the introduction to what must have been the MCU's biggest risk, at the time. Like so many of the older Marvel films, it's surprisingly better than recent efforts, but like the second Thor film, there were lots of things that got ironed out by the time they got to Volume 2. What is also surprising was that James Gunn probably had the entire trilogy thought out before he made this, because there were things in it that played important parts in the later movies. 

This is essentially an origin story of how the team got together and all the characters, apart from Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) were a little rough round the edges. Lots of things were introduced that fell by the way, such as the Nova Corps, the strange aliens that worked for Thanos and other little things that I'm not going to get into or this will likely become longer than the rest of the blog put together. It's a film that I have grown to like more after three or four watches, because I really didn't like it the first time round and I still feel the dialogue and plotting have issues. Considering I really didn't like Volume 2 (which I expect we'll watch in the next week or so) and I think Volume 3 is one of the best MCU films of all time, you can see why my feelings about this trilogy are all over the place. 7/10

What's Up Next?

In a week largely made up of Guy Ritchie films and superheroes, whatever next week brings is likely to be... well, strangely similar, given I have more Guy Ritchie films to watch and I still have a few superhero movies to rewatch...

Shrinking will edge towards its conclusion and we might start watching some of the things I've alluded to in recent weeks, but never seemed to get around to, just yet. I also want to watch Small Prophets as everyone seems to think it's brilliant. As I've got a bit of a Tom Hiddleston man crush at the moment, I might even finally get around to watching season two of The Night Manager. 

Other than that, who can say? The sun shone this morning. It was fantastic and we really need more of it in our lives. I'm still going to exercise classes - yes, I feel like I've fallen out of a plane for about 24 hours after, but I suspect it's doing me more good than harm. 

Today, is Valentine's Day. A special day created by greetings card companies to exploit idiots out of even more money. FFS, if you fancy someone tell them, if you love someone then if you aren't telling them every day, you're a massive cunt.

My Cultural Life - I'm Mandy, Fire Me

What's Up?

I wonder who really runs the world?

I also wonder if the dumbing down of the human race - through poor education and subtle propaganda - means that dodgy people get away with dodgy things because the people in governmental power think they can get away with it.

Look at Jimmy Savile. He did heinous things and got away with it for years because, above all else, the police failed to treat his accusers seriously until it was far too late. This Peter Mandelson business is no different, although I feel he's being used as a sacrificial lamb to a certain extent.

That's as far as I will give the man any benefit of the doubt, because even as early as the 1990s, before New Labour swept to victory, there were people who felt the then chief SPAD to Tony Blair was as dodgy as fuck. A pit bull dressed up as a benign gay man. I was never a fan of Blair, ever since seeing him squirm and seem oleaginous in a TV phone in during the 1992 General Election campaign (on the Robert Kilroy-Silk show) and by extension, his mate, who was pulling all of his political strings was even more dislikeable. The fact Gordon Brown put him in his cabinet and then Starmer made him US ambassador made it feel like we were never going to see the back of this bad penny.

However, he is being used as a scapegoat. The coverage in the press is warranted, but if you want to look at a bigger picture - something we're no longer encouraged to do - then Mandy, Andrew Mountbatten and the wanker in the Norwegian Royal family seem to be easy targets to deflect the attention away from certain other people. We know that these people were not the only co-conspirators of Jeffrey Epstein, but the press appear to not want us to look at other people involved, or more pertinently, the current administration in the USA wants us to focus on these non-Americans rather than wonder who in the USA is also involved.

I know people, some I class as friends, who believe that there's a secret cabal of paedophiles who run the world and have been saying this for a long time. I've always reached for the tin foil hat whenever one of them has started proclaiming all manner of ridiculous stuff, but... you know... what if they were on the right track? What if the people who run the world are just power hungry sickos? I don't think it's that crazy an idea any more.

We see evidence of rich and powerful people up to their necks in scandal almost every year. Only the extremely wealthy and powerful manage to remain untainted by it. Take the world's very own Orange Shitler; he's admitted stuff (grabbing pussies or making lewd comments about his own daughter) and been found guilty of other stuff (rape and fraud), but has managed to manipulate (read: own) the press enough for there never to be that much scrutiny. Shitler is seen in a very public video cosying up to Epstein in a room full of women (among other things) and we're seeing the DoJ in the USA redact so many things, claiming it's in the interest of National Security, and still not releasing the rest of the Epstein Files, that you have to wonder, even if you like Shitler, if there's something a bit fishy about all of this...

The Gruesome Twosome

With two thespians of the calibre of Jason Mamoa and Dave Bautista it's no wonder that The Wrecking Crew turned out to be so good... I'm sorry, did I just write that? Here's the thing, it's a surprisingly entertaining movie, if a little ... extreme and totally ridiculous. Mamoa and Bautista play half brothers whose father is a Hawaiian private detective, who's discovered a huge conspiracy taking place on one of the islands, which is owned by the indigenous people - unfortunately, he's killed because of what he knows. Mamoa is a rogue cop from Oklahoma, while Bautista is a commander in the marines - both men are one man armies, so together they're like a tactical nuclear weapon. This is incredibly violent and the swathe of destruction across Hawaii is amazing, not only for its extremism and death but because there never seems to be any consequences. Enjoyable isn't quite the right word, but you get my drift. 7/10

Dead Like Harris?

Richard Harris was only 72 when the Grim Reaper paid him a visit shortly after making Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. John Lithgow is 80 and has just embarked on assuming the role of the latest incarnation of Albus Dumbledore. Will he make it to season three? This is a ten-year project and while there are a couple of books where the headmaster of Hogwarts doesn't feature prominently, the veteran actor, who probably was first noticed by British audiences for his role in Third Rock From the Sun and has popped up in countless TV shows and movies, is going to be needed right up until he's knocking 90. I don't wish to seem cruel or blunt, but once a human being reaches 80 (unless you are David Attenborough) all bets are off. The difference between a healthy 80-year-old and one who's 90 is pretty marked. I would never wish ill of anyone, but I think it's a little like tempting fate.

The Twat Guys

A day after we watched a comedy buddy action thriller, we decided to watch another one. It was not deliberately planned that way, it just happened. Now, let's park that sentence for a second and explore this: Shane Black is a fucking awful filmmaker and The Nice Guys is his joint highest rated movie and I'm pretty convinced he paid his friends to up-tick this film because anyone with half a brain would have realised it was a pile of shit. Tonally this is a film that purports to be a comedy but isn't funny and tries hard not to be a serious film and fails that test too. Now, we watched The Fall Guy a couple of years ago, with Ryan Gosling and it was execrable - this is worse. Someone needs to tell Gosling that whacky comedies with him playing idiots in the lead role doesn't work. Russell Crowe, who co-stars, seems to be in a different movie. This is dreadful and to be honest every time Gosling is on screen you kind of want him to get shot... This is because as well as being incompetent, he's also an arsehole and a shyster.

Essentially it's about the daughter of a bigwig in the Justice Department discovering her mother is on the take from car manufacturers in Detroit and who plans to not do her job properly, this leads to several deaths, of which the LAPD don't seem to even be in this film. The best thing in this is Angourie Rice as Gosling's daughter, who has more detective skills than the two detectives and pretty much solves most of the case while the two adults fuck about destroying things and watching people die. Shane Black should not be allowed near another movie; he's a massive cunt. 3/10

Just Say Uncle

Despite a good rating on IMDB (7.2), Guy Ritchie's The Man From Uncle didn't really feel like an homage to the 1960s espionage series; more like a musclebound attempt at making a superhero film without superheroes. Had it simply been an action spy thriller it might not have sat so awkwardly, but Henry Cavill has never made a good American and isn't Robert Vaughn, Armie Hammer (before all the controversy) isn't David McCallum and why was Alicia Vikander in this unless it was to supply extra sex appeal. Elizabeth Debicki is actually a good villain, but in general this was a bit hammy and not as enjoyable as I thought it would be. However, we did watch this film 10 years ago and the only thing I remembered about it was feeling slightly underwhelmed by it all. 6/10

Bewildered

Both the wife and I had a peculiar sense of Déjà vu when we watched the pilot episode of Patriot. Certain bits of it seemed so familiar, at one specific point she said to me, "Doesn't [####] push [xxxx] under a [***]?" and exactly that happened. Later, there was a kind of follow up scene and I remembered it totally. The strange thing is neither of us remember watching Patriot when it came out in 2015 and if we did we probably only watched the pilot, or maybe we didn't and we were having some kind of freaky moment.  

This highly rated series follows the complicated life of intelligence officer John Tavner, whose latest assignment - to strangely help Iran go nuclear while preventing it at the same time - requires him to forgo all safety nets and assume a perilous, non-official cover. Or at least that's how it's generally described on IMDB; from an opening episode standpoint it felt like watching a psychopath deal with depression problems while writing folk songs about his trauma. Either way it was a great start and if we did watch this pilot 10 years ago then let's hope we missed the rest of the two series because of an afterthought or an oversight.

There's 18 episodes in total and it gets even much weirder than the opener. It's essentially just a bonkers comedy about a depressed borderline psychopathic (oh, I said that already) CIA agent who literally will do anything to achieve his objective - there are so many LOL moments you wonder why it isn't a comedy. Watching Kirkwood Smith stand and deliver a speech about nonsense pipe manufacturing is worth the admission alone. However, if much of the dialogue is just surreal, there are subplots that leave you bewildered, yet engrossed. Honestly, track this down, it's utterly crazy.

The Wonder [Man] of You

There is something better about Wonder Man than I expected. The opening two episodes (reviewed last week) were quite weak and left me wondering if the series could claw its way back from such a mediocre start. But the third episode, where Simon returns to the familial home, with Trevor Slattery in tow, is touching and full of promise. This is followed up by the fourth episode which is in black and white and tells the story of Doorman, a man bestowed with amazing powers who becomes an actor, something goes wrong and we discover why super powered individuals aren't allowed to be actors. I think the most annoying thing about this series is how it gets progressively shorter with every episode, but that is offset by - and I can't believe I'm going to say this, but - how well Williams and Slattery work together on screen. I had serious reservations about Ben Kingsley reprising his role but the series has not been shy about his connection to the Mandarin and how it has followed him around as both a positive and negative.

In conclusion, all of my reservations were unfounded. I even think it might have made a half decent two hour film if they'd edited it properly and given it some extra oomph. I really enjoyed it and many of my own personal quibbles were addressed. What puzzles me is why Disney waited so long to release it and why they released it all at once. Yes, it was as thin on material as a Cher outfit at times but it was satisfying, if quite strange that it sits inside the MCU yet somehow is a standalone. Check it out, it's the best MCU series for a long time.

Dead Can Dance

There's this feeling you're watching an emo zombie film, or maybe a existential walking dead episode. We Bury the Dead is odd. It starts with the news that the USA has 'accidentally' exploded a new prototype bomb off the east coast of Tasmania and has killed 500,000 people. Daisy Ridley is an American woman who is flying to Australia because her husband was on Tasmania when the bomb went off and she wants to recover his body. But, there's now a twist, some of the corpses are coming back. Here's the thing, that isn't the only twist in this, there's a couple more - one that is gradually revealed as the movie winds its way to the conclusion and another you really don't see coming. I say one, because it's actually two but they're both along the same lines. It's more like an indie road movie at times and some of the creepiest bits are enacted by humans not the dead. It wasn't bad, but I wanted it to be more, in the end it's a slight tale and should not have a sequel, because it works well as a standalone. 7/10

Over and Fallout

The season finale of Fallout tied up enough things for me to never watch it again.

Closure

I like Brett Goldstein; he's a good writer and in Ted Lasso his Roy Kent was perfect. The problem he has outside of this is he can't act for peanuts. He's a dreadful actor who sounds like a man out of his depth trying to be a professional actor. That said, his role in Shrinking as the man who killed Jimmy's wife in a drunk driving incident has been pivotal to many of the important things that have transpired over the first two seasons. The fact that Jimmy and his daughter have befriended the man who took something valuable away from them has been one of the strange yet wonderful things about this joyous comedy series. While everyone else has accepted Louis (Goldstein's character), Gaby hasn't and this comes to a head in this second episode. I wonder if Jimmy will discover what happened in his kitchen between the two - these things rarely happen without a reason and Gaby's mouth often goes charging in when her brain doesn't want it to. Lots of other stuff happens, including lots of bare men's arses and Paul is still hallucinating.

Dodgy Geezas

So... Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels is a film we last saw in the 20th century and while it hasn't really dated - apart from the mobile phones - it did feel as though Guy Ritchie has remade this several times under different titles. It's your customary cross/double cross and then triple cross story balanced with incompetence, misunderstanding and mistaken identities. It's classed as a proper cinema classic now, but it feels incredibly slight for such a complicated tale. Obviously it's made as easy to follow as possible, but I found myself struggling to keep up with it after less than half an hour. I managed to get myself committed to watching again, but like last week's Snatch I struggled to see what all the fuss is about. It's essentially about four wide boys who enter a poker game that's rigged and end up owing half a million quid and how they go about finding that money from dodgy geezas they live and work around. Jason Statham, Jason Flemyng, Dexter Fletcher, Vinny Jones, Sting, and a bunch of others star in a film that I think has a bigger reputation than anything else. 6/10

The Doctor is In

This week's old MCU movie was Doctor Strange, which was an absolute cgi-fest of weird, wonderful and seamless effects. This is a great film and a moderately good adaptation of Stephen Strange's metamorphosis from arrogant surgical wanker to Master of the Mystic Arts. I have some gripes about the film, mainly to do with the Ancient One - and those gripes have nothing to do with Tilda Swinton. This was as much her film as it was Buffalo Custardbath's, but there was a reluctance (or refusal) to explore the Ancient One's life, despite some tantalising hints. I also had a problem with Mordo - Strange's bette noir in the comics, but in a watered down role in the film and the second post credit scene ended up going nowhere. Like other earlier MCU movies that we haven't watched for a while, I found lots of stuff that breezed over me in the first two times and Mads Mikkelsen's villain was more lightweight than I remembered and Dormammu's role could have been bigger. This felt like a Sorcerer Supreme film, whereas the sequel felt like a load of bollocks. 7/10

A Knight's Tale?

I actually watched episode three of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms on Monday night and while I'm warming to it I also completely forgot to write a review about it - which isn't an auspicious sign. However, with the Superb Owl or whatever it's called on this coming Sunday it was double Westeros bubble this week and the fourth instalment has won me over. At last something is happening and Sir Dunc the Tall appears to have a moral backbone that makes him are far more honourable knight than say the arsehole Targaryen who he punched and kicked in the face in episode three. The fourth part is all about knights and honour and fighting for what you believe in and it was head and shoulders the best so far and actually has me wanting to watch the next part, which, if I'm calculated correctly won't be reviewed until the week after next.

What's Up Next?

Death... Seriously, I've taken up exercise classes, every Friday, and my second one was this week and the work out was more intense than the first week. I thought I'd handled it well; thinking that maybe after last week my body was growing accustomed to parts I haven't used in decades being given an airing. However, as I write this I feel like I've been run over by a bus and I've developed another cough. Actually, it's the same cough, it just has peaks and troughs over the last six weeks.

Elsewhere... we suddenly have a lot of stuff to watch - TV and films, so I expect next week's blog will be full of interesting reviews and cutting remarks or it might just be the same old same old. We might get around to the Night Manager, there will be a new Shrinking, more Patriot and other stuff. I also expect there will be a Trailer Trash on account of this Superb Owl thing happening and that's a customary time for film trailers to fall. 

My Cultural Life - Mental

What's Up?

My initial words for this section of the weekly blog migrated to another blog for impact reasons. The strange thing about my politics blog is that usually it's read by more people than read this (although I think there's a different demographic at play). This meant that I had to come up with another intro and as I talked about winter last week and the USA the week before, I'm kind of wondering where I can go with this...

The private sector makes the public sector too expensive... How about that one? People constantly complain about paying higher taxes, but apart from defence and MPs salaries, where do you think all that tax money goes? Most of it on the public sector, one way or another. The reason taxes are high and public services are shit? Because of the private sector and the need to pay shareholders high dividends. The more the private sector craves for higher dividends, the higher the price to the consumer and all of our governments are just really big consumers; they don't get what they need for nothing, they pay pretty much the same as us. So a cost of living crisis is as damaging to a government as it is to an individual. 

The huge rise we've seen in fuel prices has nothing to do with the Ukraine war or COVID. We get most of our gas from Norway, who may have raised their prices because of what's happened, but not by the amount of money we've seen energy prices rise in the UK. Do a Google search and you'll see we have the highest energy prices in Europe and most of Europe got their gas from Russia. It's not really rocket science - we're being fleeced by everybody from energy suppliers to supermarkets to inevitably councils and governments. it's actually unsustainable unless the UK becomes some Third World European country like Albania. It's happening because we have no protection from the EU any longer - something else to thank Farage for...

So, the reason taxes are high is because if they were low you'd have more money in your pocket and you'd have no public services (and public services aren't just the ones you don't like), an even worse NHS, and the rich would still be getting rich, because that extra money in your pocket would soon be swallowed up by 'inflation' - a concept driven by capitalism and created by the rich. 

The reason the Labour government aren't doing anything about it is partly because they're scared of raising rich people's taxes, partly because they've been infiltrated by what are almost affectionately called 'right wing Labour MPs' and because there's probably very little they can do because companies and corporations have governments by the short and curlies. You get a right wing government back in power and the rich will get even more tax breaks, our public services will be destroyed, our right to protest about it will be removed and if we're not 100% British we could find ourselves on a boat to the country where most of our DNA originated.

We are fucked. I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but we haven't got the ability to have a government who will do anything to alter this and we probably will never get the chance to have a government who put people first, because the people who own the country won't let that happen. For fuck's sake, Labour are a much less cuntish version of the Tories who ruined the place and they're treated so badly in the British press you'd think they were raping babies in Trafalgar Square and live streaming it into your eyes. What hope does a Green Party or even a LibDem government have when they'll be crucified by the real people with power?

But as I said in another blog - the only thing brain dead morons are interested in is having less brown and foreign people here, because, you know, that will solve all our problems...

Wonder Wall

What does it say when Marvel/Disney releases an entire series in one go? With Echo and Ironheart it felt like getting it out so they could put it behind them. A kind of 'we made this but we're not terribly proud' reaction. Wonder Man feels a little like this. Like there was a lot of love for it but when it was finished and watched by the people who watch these things they went, 'We should get this out as quickly as possible, put some distance between us and it.'

I should point out that we watched the first two parts of this on Thursday night; my monthly pub quiz, on Friday, at my local pub, means an already thin viewing week is cut short even more, so I'm unlikely to see any more of Simon Williams (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) and Trevor Slattery (Ben Kingsley) until next week. I expected a little more Marvel. We've got Damage Control, who seem a little more sinister than they've felt before and of course there's a lot of mention of the Mandarin, but this is about struggling in Hollywood, not saving the world from intergalactic trouble. I really don't know what to think, but presume that there's explanations and 'origins' forthcoming otherwise there's going to be an even greater feeling of putting distance between this and the rest of the MCU - however long that's going to last. I felt it needed something with a bit more oomph in the opening episode, so by the time we get to the end of the second part and still nothing much has happened, apart from a broken wall, I'm thinking those alarm bells are beginning to ring...

Growing

One of the best TV shows I've seen in recent years is back! Yay! This time with a double bill opener focusing on Harrison Ford's Paul, who is beginning to be debilitated by his Parkinson's. This is a series that doesn't shy away from schmaltz, but it also has a habit of being hard headed and unexpected; this season opener was almost like a recap for new viewers; every one of the characters did what you expected them to do, except maybe Sean (the lodger in the shed). It was like 'we've been gone for 18 months, so here's a recap of who you've been missing.' There is a poignant and wonderful cameo from Michael J Fox and the bastard thing that is Parkinson's is given an airing, a good carpet beating and not put away behind the special occasion stuff. It's going to be a factor in this series, like loneliness and depression have been the focus in the previous two. Yes, this was almost mawkish and everyone is so nice while being comedically bitchy, but this is the final season and I'm going to make the most of it, even if this did feel like it was copping out at times.

This One Goes Out To...

It's surprising how many films can fly under your radar. I mean, you can't be aware of everything that comes out but sometimes (a lot recently) there's something that you discover that just comes as a surprise. One of those things is the Mark Duplass and Elizabeth Moss high concept sci-fi dark comedy The One I Love. The only other actor in this is Ted Danson, who plays a marriage guidance counsellor who sends a married couple struggling with their relationship off to a country retreat to iron out their problems. So Duplass (Ethan) and Moss (Sophie) go to this idyllic place and everything seems okay until their doppelgangers turn up and start fucking with their heads as well as their bodies - and I mean that literally, as in sexual intercourse. It makes no sense and the harder the two try to work it out the weirder it gets. This is a wordy and very stagey film that feels like there's more to it than there really is. It's all right, but nothing special. 6/10

Dodgy Geezers

I've lined up something of a Guy Ritchie-fest for the next few weeks. A couple of films I've seen and a whole bunch I've not and that included Snatch, something I thought I might have seen but clearly hadn't. The first thing about this movie is that it stars a young upcoming actor called Jason Statham, someone who showed definite acting ability, especially when he was playing a London-geeza. In fact, while he was the person who went on to become Jaysun Stayfum that most definitely hadn't happened at this point in his career. Joining young Statham in this feature was Stephen Graham - looking almost embryonic - Lenny James, Denis Farina, Vinnie Jones, Benicio Del Torro, Jason Flemyng, Mike Reid, Alan Ford and Brad Pitt, as a Pikey who needed subtitles.

It's a comedy crime thriller about a missing diamond, illegal boxing matches and a story that is so entwined that you might need a scoresheet. It has a very high rating on IMDB (8.2) and while it was entertaining, I didn't think it was actually that brilliant. It's all right, I suppose and Statham is by far and away the most likeable character in it. I just wasn't completely convinced by it or its depiction of the gangster scene in London circa 2000. I'm glad I've finally seen it and that's about all I have to say. 7/10

Hedge Some Bets

So, the wife says, "What did you think of that?" asking about the second episode of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. "I'm finding it a bit boring, to be honest." I don't think this is funny - there were fewer laughs in this than the first part - and the story didn't seem to advance any, apart from Dunc taking a shine to a tall girl who acts. Egg is clearly avoiding the Targaryens (and I know why) and Dunc manages to get an endorsement from them to enter the tournament, which means he has to find some money to get some armour and assorted shit that you hit other knights with. Like I said, this is a bit boring and I think I might have just about given all my fucks about anything Game of Thrones related. 

Stark Revisited

It's getting to the time when some MCU Phase One and Two films will begin to be considered for watching again. This was mainly due to me accidentally seeing a clip from Iron Man 2 today and deciding there was enough in it I didn't remember to watch it again. The odd thing is we've watched the first one and the rather dubious 3rd one in the last few years and presumably didn't watch this one because it had been only a few years since we last watched it. As I said to the wife, "What do we do when we watch films, just zone out?" A lot of it was right there in my frontal lobe, memories leaping out like salmon on their spawning journey, but other bits, not so much. I remembered the fact that Tony found the secret to a new element on a scale model of some super city his father had been working on, plus I also remembered Mickey Rourke's Vanko, but only really the Monaco scenes. Maybe it's just because I'm getting old and my memory isn't what it used to be, but... I watched Field of Dreams a couple of weeks ago and was quoting dialogue from it all through the picture.

The thing is Iron Man 2 is a lot better than the 6.9 rating it has on IMDB. I mean with villains like Sam Rockwell and the aforementioned Rourke I can understand why, but there really should be more love for this 3rd MCU movie. It's got a really interesting story - about the USA wanting to acquire Stark technology even if he doesn't want them to have it - and I'd forgotten all about Tony's blood gradually being poisoned by the Palladium in his 'battery'. The overriding thing about this film is how much the MCU misses Iron Man. How the hero and Tony Stark were one of the cornerstones of this wonderful thing that was being created and with Avengers: Endgame that all came crashing down. If you haven't seen this for a while you really should give it another go and it has Scarlet Johansson as the Black Widow for the first time and that's almost worth the price of admission alone. 8/10 

Flop Out

I watched the penultimate episode of Fallout on my own. More happened in it than the previous six episodes. Ella Purnell in a yellow dress seemed odd (for a number of reasons). I don't care what happens next week, it'll be the last time I watch it.

Was It Marvellous, Really?

And so, we reach the end of The Marvelous Mrs Maisel, it was a fine homage to early 1960s US television with added fucks. However, whether this was deliberate or not Midge Maisel became increasingly dislikeable and Suzy Myerson's 'manager' was nothing more than a comedy midget gangster without a penis. That said, the last four episodes were a little on the strange side... actually, most of the nine episode final series did some unusual things. The flash forwards to different parts of Midge and Suzy's future were a double edged sword - they answered questions, but also raised a few, such as why they based the entire show around three years - 1959 to 1961 - when it might have been more interesting to have made greater leaps in time.

The episode that was focused solely on Suzy in the 1990s was one of the best hour's of TV I've watched in a while and that's for a show I became increasingly frustrated at. The aforementioned last four episodes felt like the ending was rushed and didn't do enough. As usual large portions of an episode were focused on things you might not have thought warranted it. There was also this propensity for highlighting just how entitled Maisel (and those around her) was. The general Jewishness felt like it did the show few favours. Yet, for all my wavering love/hate for this show, the finale was excellent if a little schmaltzy. Midge got what she wanted by doing what she's always done and this time there were no setbacks. It didn't bite her on the arse and because of the flash forwards we know that all her dreams do come true. It is not a huge spoiler to say that Mrs Maisel became a Marvelous [sic] American treasure. 

What's Up Next?

The takeover of social media by AI - that's what's happening next. I cannot believe how 'improved' AI has become. Just a few years ago we had everything from morphing faces to seven fingered hands, but now it's becoming increasingly difficult to tell what's real and what isn't (and, of course, it gives wankers the opportunity to call anything they don't like 'fake').

On Facebook and Instagram there are 'reels' which have been specially created, which look remarkable, even if you wonder how the mind of the person who fed AI with the information works. I can see why people - actors - are growing worried about being replaced by something created by a typist and a 'script'. The thing is some of this 'slop' seems pointless; I've talked about strange animal videos of lions rescuing lambs or eagles saving a family of mice before, but now there are a huge number of mundane things appearing and that should worry people far more than anything else. Once the population no longer suspect a video it becomes the norm, so AI created 10 second reels of strange canal boats cruising the waterways or a man repeatedly clearing snow from a drive might just seem normal, but, you know, it isn't really.

Anyhow, the coming week is February and there's only four weeks of February and then it's March and winter can start in earnest 👍

Also next week - films and TV, what's not to like? 

A quick side bar, if you don't mind. I'm meeting people who actually read this. At the quiz yesterday one of my friends - our vet - was saying that I still haven't watched any TV that has her desperately wanting to see and someone else I know told me they had watched The Map of Tiny Perfect Things and also thought it was a lovely film. 

I really love doing my pub quiz. If you could attend it you'd know that it's a fun-filled night that is simultaneously exhausting and exhilarating, but I get a different kind of frisson when people talk to me about my blog, because blogging is often a bit of a faceless thing where you only know a fraction of the people who read it. If you're one of the readers who I don't know about - thank you for dropping by 😍  

My Cultural Life - Great Films, Bad TV

What's Up? 

Many things bug me and it's not because I'm now almost officially an old bastard. Many of the things that bugged me when I was younger, still get up my nose now. One of those things is people posting pictures of (or simply talking about) snow drops in the middle of January and equating this appearance of the winter flower as the first signs of spring.

It isn't. It's a winter flower that will be long gone by March 1st, when winter officially ends, but as we all know it doesn't really end then. The only real positives in January are the nights drawing out. Even now (January 23) there's light in the sky after 5pm and by the end of the month it will be there at 5.30. By the middle of February, the sun will be high enough in the sky, during the day, to start warming up the conservatory, which is starved of sunshine for three months of the year and subsequently leaves the downstairs of the house feeling cold and unwelcoming.

We're a little over 6 weeks into winter, which means we're just under six weeks until the start of spring. The interesting fact about March is there's more chance of it snowing as the daffodils come out than there is when fireworks are allowed to be used and kids dress up as ghosts and ghouls. This is because of a combination of the sea, land and air temperatures. By March the area around the UK is at its temperate minimum. It might not get dark until 7pm and the sun is much higher in the sky, but if we get hit by arctic winds then all bets are off. I find I get almost as pissed off with March as I do with November and that's a psychological reason - the higher the sun gets the more our bodies think that warm weather is on the way and, of course, a warm March in Scotland is as likely as sabretooth dodos invading the USA and eating President Shitler alive (which isn't going to happen regardless of how much he says it will)...

A Real Diamond

I'm not really a fan of Neil Diamond, although I'll be the first to admit he's written some great songs. I am a bit of a fan of Huge Ackman and Kate Hudson, so when Song Sung Blue came out I found myself in the strange position of wanting to watch it (although I'm not sure the wife felt the same way). 20 minutes into this film and I was wondering if it was the right thing for me, but then it started to get slightly weird and not always in a good way. 

This is a biopic about a Minnesota (topical) Neil Diamond tribute act called Lightning and Thunder, of which Ackman and Hudson play the husband and wife team leading it. With support from Michael Imperioli, Fisher Stevens and James Belushi it feels just like a straightforward biopic and then it takes some strange turns, some funny, some tragic and always interesting. The movie has a strange chronology, because in real life they existed for over 15 years and became legends of the club scene in their part of the States, opening for a famous rock band (I won't say who, but it will blow you away) and selling out venues that only famous rock bands normally would; however, the film seems to have been shrunk down and encapsulated into a three year period - probably for artistic license. It is absolutely riveting - believe it or not - and whether you like the music or not you are glued to the screen waiting for the next WTF moment to happen. You should watch it, Huge and Hudson are great, and so is the movie, if sometimes a wee bit harrowing. 9/10

Iran and Ran

It's been over a decade since we watched Argo - a very topical movie considering what's been happening in Iran recently. This Ben Affleck directed, produced and starred in biopic about the covert evacuation of six Americans from Tehran in 1980 is a brilliant film because it's true. Affleck plays a CIA 'fixer' who comes up with a clever idea to get six Americans in the Canadian embassy out of Iran and past the Revolutionary Guard, all he needs to do is come up with a suitable cover story and background to make it work, which he does. His boss, played by Bryan Cranston, thinks it's a good idea, so Affleck's Tony Mendes recruits Alan Arkin and John Goodman - playing Hollywood producers - into his scheme and the fake film Argo is created. Despite this being a well documented true story it doesn't stop it from being one hell of a tight thriller that oozes jeopardy. A simply stunning bit of filmmaking. 9/10

One Man Army

I never expected to watch this film. In fact, it never fell onto my radar, at all. Its sequel has but despite the good reviews I figured it was a Finnish movie, it would need subtitles and I probably would struggle to enjoy it. Then an old friend, someone I see far too rarely now, suggested I watch it and given I have the ability to watch films that have subtitles now that maybe I'd give it a go, see what all the fuss is about. That movie is Sisu and it's a film about an almost impossible to kill former soldier who takes on what's left of a platoon of German soldiers at the end of WW2. It also didn't have many subtitles and those it did have were built in.

What an extraordinary thing it is. If Tom Cruise made this people would call it a load of far-fetched nonsense, but here we are and it absolutely rocks. Jorma Tommila, last seen in Rare Exports, plays Aatami - a one man army. He finds a shit load of gold and runs into a bunch of Germans, what follows is essentially utterly bonkers. The most visceral and bloodthirsty comedy I have seen in years. It is so fucked up you suspend belief after about 20 minutes as Tommila ploughs through 90 minutes of film saying six words and all of them at the very end. Some of the things he does are so ridiculous that he rewrites the meaning of the acronym FUBAR. It's blood-splattered brilliance in Northern Lapland. 8/10

A Knight's Tale

Everywhere I look there's a lot of love (and good reviews) for A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, the latest Game of Thrones offshoot from that notoriously crap writer George RR Martin - a man so crap he even changed his name to bear witness to his general plagiarism. Yes, I'm not really a fan of a writer who fails to deliver what people want and regularly delivers other things that he believes will appease his critics... but what about this new series?

Peter Claffey (no, me neither - apparently an ex-rugby player) is sir Dunc the Tall, a hedge knight (meaning he's pretty low in the ranks) with aspirations even if he's as thick as pig shit. Everyone was banging on about how funny the opening episode was; how it was a brighter and lighter side of the GoT universe, but all I thought was it was a bit boring and nothing much happened, apart from a graphic scene of Dunc taking a shit. How people can rate this 8.6 on IMDB based on that opening episode is almost as much a mystery as why people thought this was a great season opener. Fuck all happened and there's only five more half hour episodes to go...

Contra to Beliefs

I discovered a Tom Cruise movie I'd never heard of, from 2017. American Made is the true story of airline pilot Barry Seal who was recruited, covertly, by the CIA to initially take aerial photographs of the US's enemies in Central America but which spiralled into something completely huge, ending up as a drug runner for Pablo Escobar and working for Ronald Reagan. The crazy thing about this is the fact it's a true story and is based on Seal's own account of what he did and how he got away with it. This, at times, is a funny comedy, but at others is a scary thriller; tonally the film is all over the place, but actually it works very well. I don't know why it never fell on my radar and ordinarily it would be a candidate for film of the week, but in a seven-day period where the movies I've watched have been above excellent, this only really gets an 8/10.

How Did That Happen?

I saw a film last year called Friendship with Paul Rudd and some guy called Tim Robinson. It was a bit cringeworthy and Tim Robinson got on my nerves faster than a nun with the runs. What a complete tool he was in this movie... So, there was this article in the [ahem] Guardian on January 21 about TV shows that were either impenetrable or impossible to understand and one of the series listed was The Chair Company, which, from the premise, sounded like it might be my kind of thing. I can safely say it wasn't.

That man Tim Robinson was in it and he essentially played the same character he played in Friendship but with a different name and job. The idea was simple, a man sits on a chair, it collapses, sending the man - already seemingly under some pressure - into a full blown psychotic episode and going down a rabbit hole of inability and frustration. We watched the first episode and felt that we needed to watch the second just to see if we could understand not so much what was going on but whether there was a clear and obvious narrative. The lead character is trying to contact the company that makes the chair that collapsed and is finding it impossible to track them down and speak to someone and it spirals out of control and logic from that point on. We turned it off seven minutes into episode two and will never go back to it...

Fail Out

Yeah, we watched episode six of Fallout and we'll watch seven and eight as well. If you watch this show and like it then there's no point in you reading on. If you don't watch it and are tempted to then trust me when I say - don't. This week there was an imaginary musical number and a mutant saves the Ghoul's life. Woo.

The End Is Nigh...

And so, season four of The Marvelous Mrs Maisel has been watched and as I alluded to last week, the lead character is the least funny person in the show. In many ways this is a hugely disappointing season, but I think, as the closing scenes of it were unfolding, that it was purposeful. The problem is sometimes successful TV shows need to do more and I think this one felt a little like a copout. In fact, it was, at times, quite annoying. Midge Maisel's insistence about doing things her way became a kind of millstone, but it was her repeated propensity for screwing up her own future that rankled me more. She turns down so many opportunities in this season; so much money... You start to wonder if she really wants to be a comedy star or just likes talking to rough audiences who don't care about her lack of ambition and love of the word 'fuck'. Watching this show is a little like supporting Tottenham Hotspur, like the football team there's always some things to make you smile and occasionally, when you least expect it, they do something really good, but most of the time you feel let down by them. The final season awaits and the first half of it is reviewed below...

I suppose The Marvelous Mrs Maisel is the perfect example of sticking with something despite no longer really liking it. It's a really good, stylish and well-made show, but as we head towards the final four episodes I'll be glad to see the back of it. I figure it's a deliberate intention of the series for clothes-horse Midge Maisel to become this reviled, annoying and actually anything but astute central character who is essentially so stubborn and selfish she's lucky to still be alive or maybe that's just how I read it. One thing is clear, everyone else is far more interesting and funny, especially Tony Shalhoub as Abe Wiseman, Midge's slightly eccentric father. Season five has flash forwards, mainly to the 1980s where Maisel is super famous and America's favourite female comedienne. The thing is she's even more annoying in the 80s than she was in the 60s and you don't really want her to be successful. Or maybe it's just me?

I find I really couldn't give a flying fuck what Midge Maisel does any longer. I am still intrigued by Susy Myerson, her manager, who has seemingly remained almost the same character for five seasons; has seen no character development and clues we were given in the opening episode about her sexuality are only now being explored as the series heads to its conclusion. Superficial is a good word and it perfectly describes this show. It looks sumptuous and like it could almost have been filmed in the 1960s (there are some anachronisms, but we haven't got all day), but in the end nothing much has happened. The story it's telling just isn't that interesting and Midge is fucking annoying. Four episodes to go...

Humour Me

Two things. The first: someone asked me why I didn't review The Traitors. The answer is simple - I'm too fucking old to indulge in shite television. The more it gets plastered over the media the less I want to watch it. It doesn't interest me and it never will. I feel desperately sorry and pitiful for people who watch and enjoy this soulless load of stinky shit, but it's not for me.

Secondly: The Guardian. Why do I seem obsessed with this newspaper's reviews? I don't really know. I suppose it's because the Guardian is bookmarked; I've read it for 30 years and it's usually my go to place for breaking news and its culture section gives me the heads up for things that are coming out. However, as I've pointed out on numerous occasions over the last few years, it appears to have a policy of reviewing bad things positively and vice versa...

I'm actually at a stage where a bad Guardian review means a must watch and a good review is something to avoid like the plague. Even the wife has started to notice and has also seen that the paper often disagrees with itself. A four star rave review for A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms became a three star review from someone else, a day later. Lucy Mangan famously reviewed Clarkson's Farm without watching it, just opting to remind everyone what a massive cunt Clarkson was. She gave it one star. Two weeks later, Stuart Heritage reviewed it and gave it four stars, saying it possibly does more for the plight of British farming than any other TV show and it was funny and poignant.

Mangan recently gave Ryan Murphy's latest heap of shite, The Beauty, a four star rating, while IMDB had it at 5.0 until fans of Murphy rallied and brought it up to a still not respectable 5.5 by Friday morning. It makes me think that Mangan either has no idea what a good TV show is or is paid by producers to hype their latest crap TV. I'm almost convinced that the Guardian is deliberately contrary to all other reviewers because of backhanders and dirty money. I suppose this is why I'm seemingly obsessed with the paper, this and the fact it used to be a centre left newspaper that could be read by everyone left of a Liberal. Now, not so much. 

Oh My Word...

Oh Jeez... In a week full of great movies... My love of time loop films is common knowledge. I adore Groundhog Day, I thought Omni Loop was a fabulous film, despite what others thought. I think Palm Springs is utterly brilliant. I know the writer/creator of Happy Death Day. In fact, even shit time loop films have a place in my heart. So imagine my surprise when I discovered there was another time loop film, one I didn't know existed. Imagine my surprise when it turned out to be one of the loveliest, most poignant and moving things I have ever watched... The Map of Tiny Perfect Things is a delight. At the end of it, I was simultaneously blown away, deeply moved and really happy. It is one of the best movies I have seen in a long long time (and frankly, this week has had some absolute stonking films, as you've no doubt realised). Dare I even suggest it was nigh on perfect...

Kathryn Newton (Cassie in the most recent Ant-Man film) and Kyle Allen are two teenagers stuck in a 16 hour time loop. We don't know for how long, because it starts with Mark (Allen) perfectly going through a morning routine like he's been practicing it for centuries (and he might have). His day is very much what he wants it to be; he does all the kind of things Bill Murray does in Groundhog Day, he even tells his best friend, quite regularly, that he's living in a version of that film. Then one day, as he waits for something to happen - as it always does - a girl wanders across his carefully rehearsed set up and she is Margaret (Newton) and his life changes. The thing is she's enigmatic; there are things about her life she's not sharing and Mark, because he's besotted with her, doesn't really pry. Margaret is his friend for about 12 of those 16 hour days. This is a really beautiful love story, but like all good time loop films there's always a catch and the trick is how to deal with that problem. I was transfixed by this 93 minute film. Heck, I know I'm a sucker for a good time loop movie - hey, I've already admitted I'm a sucker for bad time travel movies, but this was wonderful, uplifting and utterly beguiling. 10/10
* I also need to tell you that when the film finished and the credits had played out, it should have auto stopped and defaulted back to the menu screen, but instead it started playing all over again and this was a stroke of absolute genius even if I don't know how they managed it...

Poles Apart

Will Smith does a Michael Palin mixed with a David Attenborough and goes on a National Geographic TV show that takes him from the South Pole to the North Pole in seven parts. The first part - on the South Pole - is 45 minutes long and is very white. The second part is in the Amazon Rain Forest and is 29 minutes long and continues into the third part, which is still in the Amazon. I'm not sure what the point of this is, unless it's just a way of rejuvenating Smith's career and put him in awkward situations that someone might find interesting or entertaining. Don't get me wrong, it was okay and will fill voids over the next week or so when we can't be arsed to watch anything else.

What's Up Next?

Shrinking is back. That's enough, really. It's the final season. It will be great while it's on and will be missed when it's gone.

We might start with The Night Manager and the jury is out on whether we're going to watch Steal, it depends on two things; how low it's IMDB score goes and whether we feel we can stomach Sophie Turner for six episodes.

I'll finish The Marvelous Mrs Maisel and the penultimate episode of Fallout will be suffered. There will also be films, but whether they will be as good as this week is very doubtful. Stay tuned, it's not likely to change that much...