Modern Culture - Vas Deferens

The spoilers in this week's blog are for your own benefit, trust me...

Fucking Hell Guy

I am lost for words. Literally. That newspaper I dislike, that I often quote or use as an example of points I want to make, had an article last week asking why this year's summer blockbusters have bombed at the box office. Have the general public fallen out of love with big films? I wonder if the newspaper's article writer has seen The Fall Guy - especially as they use it as an example - because if he or she had they would have been handed the answer on a silver platter. It failed because it was conceivably the worst film I have seen so far this year and given the amount of shit I have either sat through or turned off that is saying something.

This reworking of the Lee Majors TV series with Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt should have at least been a reasonable film; it should have been entertaining even if it was going to be slight and probably a little contrived. But this was absolute shit; so shit that it makes normal shit look good. What the fuck were the people involved in this thinking? What were the producers, director and people behind the studio that made it thinking? It was so fucking awful they even had to wheel an almost dead Lee Majors (he's 85) and a deformed Heather Locklear out at the end to seemingly pay homage to what was a shitty TV series in the 1980s. Jesus wept and frankly he wouldn't just have wept, he would have vomited and curled up in a foetal position and burbled like someone suffering from PTSD.

What was it about? A narcissistic film star, his in-cahoots producer and a frame up that was stupidity on a shit-covered stick. A love story and a really shit film inside a really shittier film. Seriously, if you never take my advice on anything in these blogs, please don't waste two hours of your life on this; beat yourself with nettles, go and kill some kittens, have a wank in front of the nearest police station wearing a clown's mask, ring up a stranger and heavily breathe down the phone until dawn, jump off a cliff twice. Any of these things would be more enjoyable. Gah... and GAH again...

Oh for the love of god, I've just been informed there's an extended version of this film available with an added 9 minutes - someone is taking the piss.

Going Solo

Millie Gibson isn't the best Doctor's companion but she was given absolute centre stage in a very confusing but ultimately slightly creepy episode of Doctor Who that really made little or no sense but was essentially a story about fucking up and getting salvation...

The Doctor and Ruby land in Wales in the present and within a couple of minutes the Doctor inadvertently breaks a fairy ring and plunges Ruby into a nightmare life where there is no longer a Doctor and she is followed by an old woman trying to tell her something. The problem is whoever approaches the old woman then runs away shit scared and they never want to see Ruby again - everybody, even Kate Lethbridge-Stewart, who appears to want to help the Doctor's ex-companion but quickly makes an exit. This is never explained nor do we learn what these people have been told. It appears this is all to do with a politician who almost brings about the end of the world - in a The Dead Zone type story - until Ruby works out, when she's in her 40s, how to stop it. She then lives another 43 years before realising that the person she has seen all this time is actually herself and all she has to do is stop the Doctor and her younger self from making the mistake that they originally made over 60 years earlier.

Don't get me wrong, it's another great episode after the very poor beginnings, but if you put any scrutiny into the story then it pretty much falls apart. You never know why people run away from the woman; you never know how this weird time loop happens or how the Doctor disappears for almost the entire episode, just that there's something supernatural going on and we never discover how Ruby gets the chance to go back in time to prevent the things that caused all of this to happen in the first place. A kind of anti-paradoxical fantasy story. It doesn't work but it was still a very entertaining episode and one that I don't think Ncuti Gatwa should have been paid more than £50 for.

One thing that should concern all fans of this RTD2 version is the falling audience. I don't know how well it's doing on Disney+ but it's now being watched by a million fewer people than Jodie Whitaker's Doctor and I don't know if this is simply just Doctor Who fatigue or if there's something a little more racially sinister about it. I don't care if the Doctor is a single parent disabled lesbian sperm whale as long as the stories are good, but the UK is already passing its judgement on our Asian PM and the UK has become exceptionally racist since 2016, so maybe the only way for DW to flourish in the future is to have a white heterosexual male play the role; that way the twats will have very little to complain about... FFS.

Must Trier Harder

Blimey, what a weekend of shite that turned out to be... Although, to be fair, we went into Melancholia with the knowledge that the previous Lars Van Trier films we had endured were not enjoyed, so we shouldn't (and probably didn't) go into this with many, if any, expectations and ironically we were completely let down, or was that not let down. I don't think I care really... The question I need to ask myself is why did I watch it in the first place?

For those of you who haven't seen this film, it purports to be a science fiction movie, but that's a loose description at best. Yes, there is an teensy-weensy element of sci-fi in it - that being a large blue planet called Melancholia that is about to crash into Earth, but what this is really about is a dysfunctional family.

Kirsten Dunst plays Justine, celebrating her wedding to Michael (Alexander Skarsgård) at a swish hotel at a golf club, attended by her sister Claire, played by Charlotte Gainsbourg and her husband Kiefer Sutherland; their father John Hurt - who is a philandering coward and mother Charlotte Rampling, a thoroughly miserable woman intent on ruining everyone's time. Everything seems relatively 'normal' to begin with and there's no mention of the blue planet at all as the wedding reception finally gets going after the bride and groom arrive two hours late after their limo couldn't manoeuvre around the narrow roads. it's from this point on that it just becomes an absolute chore. Justine is obviously both bi-polar and fucking mad as she ignores her groom in favour of anything else - putting her nephew to bed, shagging her new assistant on a golf green, being depressed, having a bath and mingling with all the guests rather than spending any time with Michael.

While this is going on her sister Claire is just panicking about everything; her husband is moaning about the cost, the mother is being miserable in the bath and the father has opted out of staying the night and has fucked off to wherever he came from. The wedding planner explicitly refuses to look at Justine and puts his hand in the way whenever she is within his line of sight, Stellan Skarsgård plays Justine's boss, who is a massive twat and an arsehole and there are some horses. Michael opts to fuck off and leave his mad wife and the story then shifts focus onto Claire. 

Justine almost catatonic from depression arrives to stay with them as Melancholia is about to do its flyby of earth; Claire discovers that Melancholia is probably going to hit earth and wipe it out while her husband is telling her not to be so stupid but ends up killing himself to avoid the impending apocalypse. Justine goes nude planet bathing, one of the horses refuses to leave the grounds, refusing repeatedly to cross a bridge and a golf buggy runs out of power on said bridge making them feel trapped and the earth is destroyed - the end. 

To say it was a load of bollocks would be an insult to bollocks. Kudos to Dunst for doing stuff I never imagined her to do - multiple unflattering nude scenes - and oddly enough the wife said before we sat down to watch anything, "What shit have you got for us to watch tonight?" This is essentially an art house movie dressed up as sci-fi. If you're expecting drama, action, logic or even a sci-fi film then this isn't the film for you. It wasn't crap crap, but it was a load of crap and that's another two hours of my life I'm never going to get back. I might opt for getting someone to shoot me over watching another film that I suspect is going to have the same effect.

BBC Bits

It's good to see that the BBC has been forced to bring back some of their good newsreaders for the news channel thanks to the excellent Martine Croxall and her lawsuit; we're also going to see Anita McVeigh and Kasha Madera back on our screens - in fact the latter was on Bank Holiday Monday and she oozed professionalism and class. Sadly, we still have many of the new faces, such as Nicky 'Nosferatu' Schiller and a bunch of people who have infiltrated our living rooms for over a year and we still don't know what their names are...

I've made my dislike of the two main political parties well known over the last few years; the Tories are just lurching around like Baldrick is in charge of them, while Blue Labour shifts further to the right on a daily basis, so it's surprising that Laura Kuenssberg hasn't jumped on their bandwagon, but they're probably not Nazi enough for the former BBC chief political editor. She is, however, going to be leading the BBC's Election Night coverage and given the 'face liked a slapped arse' she had when the Tories were almost wiped out in Local Elections at the start of May, I hope it's going to be a traumatic General Election night for this sour-faced fascist.  **Update: BBC has announced that Clive Myrie is co-hosting with Kuenssberg, presumably as comic relief and because they're worried about accusations of allowing a biased reporter to get upset about the mess her beloved party is in.

Mental Squad

Comparing 2016's Suicide Squad with 2021's The Suicide Squad is like comparing having an orgasm with farting in the bath, The former is a bloated, uninspiring mess, while the latter is a laugh a minute riot, an orgy of violence and madness and by far the second best DC superhero film ever made.

James Gunn is the current best director of this kind of thing at the moment and this was a great mix of insane humour and psychopathic vibes, with the top prize going to Viola Davis for her reprise as Amanda Waller - a government agent who literally is far nastier and despicable than 99% of the 'psychos' she 'employs' to do these 'suicide' missions. Margot Robbie is back as Harley Quinn and Joel Kinnaman as Rick Flagg for which is a sequel to the 2016 without really even mentioning that. Idris Elba is Bloodsport, because Will Smith probably didn't want to do a sequel, and while Deadshot is a different character there's a lot of similarities between the two. This is the film that introduces John Cena as Peacemaker and pretty much every other character is and was expendable; oh and Sly Stallone was the voice of the shark Nanaue.

It's about these expendable mercenary super powered psychos overthrowing a rogue government on the island of Corto Maltese but there's a twist in the tale and an awesomely superpowered starfish - Starro - who turns people into its zombie horde. It's funny from almost the first scene, contains so much 18 rated stuff that Deadpool movie fans would have been shocked and it has a story that is both comical and serious - an almost perfect blend. It's the kind of comic book movie that people who don't like comics or superhero films could get behind and like. It has excellent special effects and leaves you wondering how DC could make such a great film (oh yeah, James Gunn) and almost everything else they do is like a dribbly shit from a baby's arse with dysentery. 

Mad Cows

If you get the chance you really should watch Knox Goes Away because it is bloody brilliant. This is Michael Keaton's first foray into directing (and he stars in it as Knox) and it's pretty much a 10/10 for his debut. This is about a hitman who is diagnosed with Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease (CJD), which in this case manifests itself as a form of aggressive dementia, giving him less than a couple of months to live.

Now, here's the thing; if I tell you too much about this film it will give it away and I don't want to do that because it's clever and exceptionally well made. Along with Keaton is Al Pacino, Marcia Gay Hardin, James Marsden and Suzy Nakamura - as the smart mouthed cop. What I can tell you is that Keaton's character Knox is a man with two PhDs, is a former army officer who did some of the unsavoury jobs for the forces and he wants to clear up all his affairs before the disease gets too bad for him to be able to function. Then something happens that throws his plans into a mess and needs him to be at his best, not in a situation where he can be 'with it' one minute and totally gone the next. The thing that happens, however, is not him accidentally killing an innocent woman on a hit, or killing his partner on the same hit and it's not the slightly shoddy job he does of covering his tracks. What happens is unexpected and that's where the twists and turns come into play. This is a great film. We've had it for weeks and I've never felt the urge to watch it but with the Flash Drive of Doom getting really thin on the ground for content we dived in and I'm so glad we did. You should to, you won't be disappointed. 

For the Love of Dog

If you fancy a reasonably good movie that will put you through the mill and leave you exhausted at the end then Arthur the King is the true story for you. Starring Mark Wahlberg, Simu Liu, Natalie Emmanuel and Juliet Rylance, this is the story of a failed endurance athlete deciding he has to give it one more shot and then assembles a team to tackle one of the toughest endurance races of them all, across the Dominican Republic. It's also the story of how a dog saves one of the team's life and changes everything about these dedicated race nutters... 

With his team struggling in 6th place, Wahlberg kind of adopts a stray dog who stops them from running into disaster - literally - and shows them the quickest way to win... Except that first bit is true but the rest of it isn't really. The film is essentially watching four adults put themselves through hell to win a race - across mountainous terrain, boggy swamps, ravines, jungles and rivers and lakes accompanied by a dog that has been beaten and been involved in a lot of fights with other dogs - Arthur, as they name him, is pretty much in a bad way and the rest of the film is about sacrifices for a dog - anything else and it gives it away; but it is a true story and some of you might know it already. 

Other Bits

Apparently, Mike Flanagan - the 'director' who is a huge fan of his own work and seemingly has fans high up in Hollywood's hierarchy, is going to remake The Exorcist with a 'brilliant new twist' - for starters remaking one of the classic and most iconic films of all time is a fucking stupid idea, especially by a hack director who makes shit movies and TV shows. Secondly, isn't it about time we had some new, original ideas made into films rather than exhuming the past?

The third series of The Bear begins at the end of June. If you've never seen this show, the first two series are two of the best TV shows EVER and the star - Jeremy Allen White - is probably the most gifted actor of his generation (and I've been saying this for almost 15 years). Miss it and miss out.

The third film starring Deadpool is going to be a con according to my source at Marvel. The movie's trailers have been expletive laden with more 'fucks' than a porn film, yet the actual film is going to be a little less swear heavy and some of the violence in the trailers isn't going to be as... explicit. In fact, my man - who has some skin in this game - says there have been a number of scenes filmed specifically for the trailers and won't appear in the actual film, or, more likely will appear in the film but because you don't see Ryan Reynolds' mouth move under the Deadpool mask, other words will be substituted. There is also going to be a PG-13 version, of which there are alternative scenes inserted for the more R rated ones. One other bit of news is that Olly Palmer, Wrexham's 'other' attacker/forward will make a cameo in the film, as will Rob McElhenney - but neither are likely to have speaking parts and the latter will be killed, violently, by Marvel's Merc with a Mouth. My anticipation for this movie has been waning since it was first announced that Wolverine was going to be in it, so by the time it comes out having a bath with piranhas will seem more appetising. 

Fear No ... Were-Thing

It's only the second episode and already Evil is ramping up the weirdness and leaving more of those dangling subplots all over the place. This week, in an episode called 'How to Train a Werewolf' we had no werewolves, but we did have robot dogs attacking people with Catholic Mass apps on their phones. No one ever said this was a unique TV show but maybe they ought to have considered it; not even the X Files got that far out into left field.

So, Ben is being stalked by a Jinn and what a creepy looking fucker it is; Kristen's husband is going out of his mind, her eldest is dead serious about becoming a nun and her mother is trying desperately hard to make it in the misogynistic world of demons and devil worshippers. This leaves David, who appears to be channelling some form of psychic ability that the CIA would love to have and he also gets a new 'Vatican' handler in the form of the brilliant actor who played the High Evolutionary in the Guardians of the Galaxy film - Chukwudi Iwuji. It seems the weirder David gets the further up the Catholic church food chain he rises. I don't know if my memory is poor but I also seem to think that this series has far more 'fucks' than I ever remember. The language has essentially become so prolific you'd think it was a streaming platform show from HBO. The black comedy is also getting blacker while simultaneously the show becomes a little more irreverent - this is the final series and it will get concluded, but it's like our trio of heroes are almost acting like everything's going a little batshit so we're just going to strap in and enjoy the ride. I'm going to miss this when it's gone.

A Miss Adventure & Other Stories

We've been fans of the Misadventures of Romesh Ranganathan since it started five years ago; we've seen the comedian become almost ubiquitous, appearing in loads of TV shows and bringing his distinctive comic timing and observations into a growing number of homes, but this series, which has always gone to 'troubled' countries, has always found something good about the dodgy countries the comedian visits, except this time...

Romesh was in Uganda and while he admitted that it was one of the most fantastic countries he has ever visited, it became clear by the halfway mark that he was having problems with his 'co-host' Alex and the country's laws in general. Uganda recently passed a law that made being homosexual a crime, punishable by 20 years in prison, possibly even death and because this deeply conservative and religious country accepted the law almost unanimously it makes being LGBT+ in this country dangerous. The majority of the population are so overwhelmed by hatred for them, Alex talked about them like she was talking about animals and Romesh spoke - anonymously - with a lesbian in the country who spoke of 'legal rape gangs', re-educating women and being ignored by the authorities.

At the end of the show, Romesh could not recommend going to Uganda and looked so uncomfortable about being there. He's not a member of the LGBT+ community but he lives in a country that practices tolerance and his co-host really struggled with his tolerance - the tension could be cut with a knife. 

The next episode, however, felt like an advert for Rwanda, especially given how it has been in UK news over the last year or so. If the Tory party needed a public information film about what a wonderful country the one they planned to send refugees to then this was it. It seemed like no other African country any of us has ever seen on a TV travel documentary. It was clean, the people were happy and it was full of amazing wildlife and sights and given this was the site of an actual genocide in 1994 the change has been remarkable. There is the belief in this country that Rwanda has an appalling human rights record, that President Paul Kagame is a dictator who runs an authoritarian regime that isn't much better than the people who oversaw the mass murders thirty years ago, but you didn't get that impression; in fact, Hypo, Romesh's guide, seemed to think that this was something that opponents of Kagame had prefabricated and if anything if there was strictness in his country it was protecting it from the worst excesses of the rest of Africa.

The thing is, there didn't seem to be any evidence that Rwanda is anything other than a hopeful, happy and welcoming country. The slightly dramatised part with Romesh sitting in a boat on the middle of a lake using analogue recording equipment seemed staged and done to give the impression they had to do that for fear or reprisals. It also allows the BBC critics to claim - wrongly - that it is a left wing broadcaster. In the end he was blown away by the country and would have been happy to recommend it to anyone wanting to discover Africa.

The final part of this series was on the 4th largest island in the world, Madagascar. This is a place pretty much like no other on the planet, a country that has been blighted by corrupt governments, exploitative companies ruining the land and somewhere that over 80% of its population live in poverty and are powerless to change it. Not a lot of that was looked at, or for that matter even discussed. There was references to the corruption and the fact the country doesn't see its taxes being used to better the country, but in general it was a place where Romesh seemed to enjoy and enjoyed the company of his guide, Bic. The thing was, for a conclusion it felt a little lightweight; yes the Lemurs were nice and the baobab trees spectacular, but it seemed a little boring at times. There was the unexpected - a fine dining restaurant in the middle of nowhere was a perfect example of the weird incongruity of the place. It was a late addition to the Ranganathan itinerary; they were supposed to go to the Democratic Republic of the Congo but a volcano and a civil war put paid to that, so they ended up on Madagascar, which allowed Romesh to make a number of Julian, King of the Lemurs jokes.

Next Time...

Blah blah blah... there will be a next time, unless there isn't, in which case there won't.