And so the Game of Thrones prequel returns complete with an opening titles sequence that now uses the GoT theme tune but with a slightly more medieval feeling. In fact, it has been something like two years since the end of the first series of
, with the death of Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen's youngest son by the hand of her former best friend the Dowager Queen Alicent Hightower's youngest son Aemond and the declaration of war between the two Targaryen factions, yet I didn't really need that much of a recap because the story is essentially quite a simple one.
Chronologically, no time has passed at all from the end of last season and it's still a case of wounds being very raw and plans gone out of the window thanks to the insanity that House Targaryen is riddled with. Rhaenyra (pictured left) is off grieving while her uncle/cousin/husband (Matt Smith) has been scheming and planning the death of Aemond and rallying his own troops to side with his wife; who you might remember was supposed to be the new Queen but she was betrayed by her former best friend who lied about the late King's wishes so her own child would become king. That would be Aegon II who might also be as mad as a box of frogs but also might have some compassion in him, which will need to be knocked out of him and that is likely to happen given the events at the end of this season opener. The thing is I'm not sure I give a shit about this series any more. I can't vouch for anyone else watching, but the GoT zeitgeist seems to have gone away and the two year gap between this and the first series might well have not so much lost fans they just might have moved on and are maybe not that bothered about this mumbling, dark and brooding series about family, betrayal and shagging your sister while a bloodthirsty dragon watches on. I enjoyed the first series of House of the Dragon because it was less complicated and had considerably less baggage than its parent show, but I found this all a bit dull and, dare I say it, boring.
Smoke and Mirrors?
A Doctor Who fan and friend of mine called the latest episode 'the best one he's seen in years; proper science fiction,' and that got me excited. I trust the opinion of this person because he's a proper fan. Sadly, I think he was blinded by all the noise and flashing lights, the faux technology and the apparent twists and turns; because The Legend of Ruby Sunday was not as good as people seem to think...
New/old big bad, old and new faces and a mystery within a mystery, but what does it all mean? Is there something we're missing? Does Ruby hold the key to this or is it a red herring? Is her mum something special - maybe an incarnation of the Doctor or another Time Lord? What has it got to do with the new God of Death? Do I actually care that much? I don't know that I do; you see in the past the Doctor would have done something about it, rather than stand around looking puzzled or looking out of windows. yes, he was confused; he couldn't work out what was going on, but, you know he wouldn't have allowed the things that happened if he'd been a true Doctor. It just makes me think he's a poor facsimile of an actual Doctor and given the trailer for next week's episode it's clear that David Tennant is back, but whether that's to die or to bail out this new rubbish incarnation, we'll have to wait and see. Too many new characters, too many comedic digresses and not enough of anything happening other than menace. It was like we were being led down a specific garden path that was going nowhere we expected; which isn't a bad plot idea but some idea of it might have also been good - a clue or two that everything wasn't simple and easy.
Yes, it was entertaining, after a fashion, but I'm no longer sure it serves a purpose. I'm thinking next Saturday might be the day I finally bow out and leave everyone else to worry about Doctor Who...
Is It Me?
Between seven and ten years ago, when we lived in Northampton and had to suffer Look East and their extensive coverage of tins of beans falling off of shelves in Diss. We also got our first look at the weather woman Elizabeth Rizzini - she was the fill in forecaster, usually at weekends and Bank Holidays. She was exceptionally annoying. In recent months, we've seen many of our traditional weather people disappear from our screens; they probably move on to other things, many of them are actually meteorologists and about 18 months ago we saw Rizzini establish herself as one of the BBC's main presenters and she's still cartoonishly annoying.
I know she's an actual meteorologist, but she seems more like eye candy than serious weather forecaster and I've got to the stage where I've subscribed to the Met Office's Tube of You channel rather than watch the, now rather erratic, BBC weather coverage. Plus, the Met Office use their own forecasts, whereas the BBC has used Accuweather for the last half a dozen years and Accuweather are essentially data miners - taking everyone else's public forecasts and producing forecasts that are the 'average' of everyone else's. The thing is, whatever they tell us they're getting it wrong more often than right. A week ago we were told the shit weather would last until at least the 24th June, but as the week progressed the forecast, thankfully, changed and now we might actually see some summer before midsummer. This is pretty much diametrically opposite what they were suggesting until they quietly changed their forecast. Weather forecasting should carry a warning along the lines of 'this forecast is advisory at best.'
Starshit Poopers
It's been so long since we last watched Paul Verhoeven's Starship Troopers that we forgot it is essentially an ultra-violent comedy. I remember when it came out and critics were fawning over the depiction of the future and 27 years later it does have elements about it that are prophetic rather than crazy, but it's largely a Freudian exploitation film - especially towards women - with genitalia references all over the place and the acting is, in general, fucking abysmal.
Based on the Robert Heinlein book, it's about a group of Buenos Ares 'civilians' who join the army to fight the bugs that have, inexplicably, decided to wage war on us from several galaxies away by firing rogue asteroids at us (see? Bonkers!). Casper Van Dien, Denise Richards, Jake Busey, Neil Patrick Harris join up to fight bugs, but when the bugs destroy the capital of Argentina (full of Americans with Latino names) a full scale war is declared and it's all about getting as much bug goo on you as you can without being killed. It's overblown, overwrought, melodramatic to the point of pantomime at times, tragic and as funny as fuck without ever giving you a Laugh Out Loud moment (or even a snigger). It reminds me of a 1950s Sci-Fi film but updated for the late 90s. It's also not even a complete story but a snapshot of different points in the progression of the 'gang' and obviously sets itself up for a sequel (which there were four and all of them shite). The special effects are off the scale for a 1997 film and the general tongue-in-cheek feel was a welcome change when it was released. The two biggest problems are how much parts of it have aged and not stood up to the test of time and the am-dram acting, which is borderline nonsense.
A (Not So) Game Show
The wife is a big fan of
The Chase and I have been known to watch it from time to time. The problem I have with it - like many quiz shows we watch - are the contestants, or at least the contestants with no balls (and I'm not being genderist). On The Chase once you've done a cash builder round, the Chaser offers you a low figure, the figure you achieved and a much higher number. I have never been able to understand why someone would go on a quiz show and accept the low figure - especially if it's a minus. I mean, what's the fucking point of going on a quiz show to win money if you don't feel confident enough to at least try for the amount of money you originally accrued? As someone who is - modestly - very good at General Knowledge, if I was on that show I'd make it clear to any of my team members that if they go for a lower figure they'd be on their own in the final because I wouldn't share what I've won with a quitter and a 15 minutes of famer, because that can be the only reason they're on a show like it. Cowardly wankers, the lot of them.
A Comedy of Errors
You're going to see a theme over the next few weeks - a lot of George Clooney films. Some we've seen and most we haven't. For some reason, despite both of us being something of a fan of the Kentucky-born actor, there are a lot of his films we've never seen, so I remedied that and we now have about ten Clooney films to indulge in.
Burn After Reading is a film we saw 15 years ago, but like so many films we've watched it might as well have been the first time. We both remembered Brad Pitt's dozy gym bunny character, but other than that we might as well have been watching a film that comes out next year. This is a Cohen Brothers film and like all Cohen Brothers films we've seen it was quite superb and absolutely as odd as fake mince. It starts with John Malkovich being fired from his job as an analyst for the CIA, allegedly for having a drink problem and from this point on it just gets tangled up in a crazy mess like a game of Twister with ten drunk monkeys on LSD.
Malkovich is married to Tilda Swinton who is having an affair with George Clooney - a philandering fantasist who works in government security - his wife is a children's author and while she's hardly in the movie she is important to the plot. Pitt and Frances McDormand work at a gym that Malkovich's personal files from his computer - on a CD - was stolen and then lost by Swinton's lawyer's secretary and falls into the hands of Pitt, who thinks it's CIA secrets and he then tries to blackmail Malkovich - badly. Clooney as well as shagging Swinton, also hooks up with McDormand. He's also as paranoid as fuck and starts thinking he's being followed by government agents; he is being followed but they're not the government. It's all incestuous and interlinked and all the time the CIA are sort of monitoring it and the two gym workers attempts to sell Malkovich's bank account details and outline for his book to the Russians. We're talking farce here, but it is done so incredibly well you almost get lost in the twists and turns. It has a conclusion, but probably not the one you imagine happening. If you've not seen it, you should, but you might need to watch it twice!
What IFs
I'm probably a sentimental old fool, but I thought IF was a wonderful film, with comical characters and if it went over the top on the sentimentality then so what. It was a movie about rediscovering the things you give up when you grow up and about the imaginations of individuals being unique to them and no one else. Imaginary friends belong to the person who imagines them and no one else...
This is the latest Ryan Reynolds vehicle, directed and co-starring John Krasinski and featuring a veritable host of famous actors doing voice parts ranging from one line to entire monologues. It is a fantasy family film about a girl - Bea - who has faced enormous heartache and could be on the verge of facing even more when she starts seeing peoples' imaginary friends. To begin with she's scared and bewildered, but before long she begins to understand that these fantastic and strange creations were all once loved by children who grew up and moved on. She is guided into helping these IFs into finding new children by Cal - Ryan Reynolds - a mysterious man who lives on the top floor of the apartments where her grandmother lives. While this now 12-year-old brings hope to these strange assortment of characters, she has no real success unless she takes the IFs back to their original 'owners'. This is a film with some neat twists, some absolutely 'reach for the tissues' moments and Cailey Fleming - who played Judith Grimes in
The Walking Dead - plays Bea in a confident and assured way that really makes the film work. This is a for all the family thing, but it's also the sort of movie that you can watch in your 60s and get an absolute kick from, whether you had your own IF or not.
Get Outer Here
I read about a TV show from Amazon starring Josh Brolin that sounded weird enough for me to give it a try and weird is an understatement to say the least. Outer Range is yet another show that really defies logic and could either end up being a load of old bollocks or the new Twin Peaks; whatever it is the first few episodes certainly left us bewildered and befuddled. It's described by IMDB as a mystery drama, but on Wiki its the more accurate Science Fiction Neo-Western.
Brolin plays Royal Abbott, the owner of a ranch in Wyoming who is involved in a land struggle with his neighbours regarding 600 acres of his ranch. This area just happens to be where something inexplicable and unfathomable has appeared - a black hole in the ground that swallows up anything that is thrown into it, but might be a time portal either into the future or maybe the past. Royal's sons have an altercation with the neighbouring Tillerson boys and one of them is killed in a fight, which the Abbotts' then cover up, by throwing the body into the black hole, but a mysterious woman who has asked for permission to camp on their land sees Royal dispose of the body and pushes him into the hole. There is a lot more going on and both the mystery woman and Royal have strange pasts which they have little or no memory of and there's a lot of very odd dialogue, references to the myth of Cronos and a struggle between religion and atheism. There's two seasons of this so far and we're just starting out, it does appear to be glacial slow but given it appears to be about time and I love time travel things, I can't wait for this to develop.
That 50s Film
Our second Cohen Brothers film of the week was almost diametrically opposite Burn After Reading and yet it kind of had the same feel; but perhaps that's the whole point of the Cohens, they make movies which are multi-stranded yet through the quirkiness of how they see the world they all end up coming out similar in the wash.
In a week that seems destined to be full of George Clooney, it might also have a lot of Josh Brolin in it as well as
Hail, Caesar! has both of them in the two leading roles. This is a movie about a fixer - a job that Clooney often does, but this time it's down to Brolin as Eddie Mannix. the guy a top studio hires to not only run the studio smoothly but to get its top talent out of as many scrapes and controversy as possible. He has his fingers in all the pies while trying to decide whether he wants to take a job working for Lockheed and trying to locate his star performer, Clooney's Baird Whitlock, who has been kidnapped by communists. As usual with Cohen Brothers films there are characters involved you simply don't understand how they fit in yet in the end it all fits together very nicely. However, this simply doesn't have the panache and style of any other Cohens film I have ever seen; in fact it look fantastic but it's a very slight movie that feels as though there should be more to it than there is. Like the aforementioned
Burn After Reading, there's that comedy of errors elements in it, but this time it doesn't really work. It isn't that funny, the set pieces are all a bit forced and it felt like re-tread rather than anything original.
Blood, Sweat and er... Blood
Episode four of The Boys offered something a little different, but whether it was enough to stop this from the doldrums remains to be seen. It felt like a pivotal episode especially as it's the half way point of the series and it really needed something to happen.
Homelander went 'home' to where it all started and it didn't end well for most of the people in the lab where he was 'grown'. Annie's deepest darkest secrets are revealed live on TV and her reaction was probably exactly what was wanted by the cleverest woman in the world, while Frenchie's guilty conscious got the better of him when he probably shouldn't have let it. Billy might still be invested with superpowers, but one thing is for sure he's as mad as a barking fish and he appears to have some kind of worm living inside him, while Hughie and A Train bury the hatchet to enable Hughie to try and save his dad, which he opts against only for the situation to get way out of his control. This was the episode where it probably reaches the nadir for our 'heroes' which means everything from now on in will probably start going their way.
High-Flying Evil
The latest episode of Evil dispensed with the comedy - to a degree - and swapped it for something of a shaggy dog story which seemed, from the start, to be a way of allowing certain events to happen, casting a shadow over the Vatican's role in all of this.
The team needs to deal with an exorcism gone wrong, especially after the first they hear about it is after it's gone wrong. They do some investigating and something crops up that seems to have such a great religious significance the three are summoned to Rome, where they're given something of a run around until they're sent home with the now apparent worthless antiquity. However, while they're on the flight, David gets a call from the Vatican telling him that the artefact might not be what they thought it was but it's still dangerous and they're put in a tricky situation. Meanwhile, Kristen has left the four kids with a friend of hers, who mysteriously gets called away from babysitting duties within an hour of Kristen leaving for Rome. A series of unfortunate and weird events lead the girls to call their grandmother, who comes to the rescue and during her unexpected visit, she brings Timothy, the Antichrist with her to Kristen's house where she eventually tells the kids who he is. Ordinarily I wouldn't have read anything into this had it not been for the silent treatment and weird behaviour of the priests in the Vatican. Yet, by the end I started to think that the Catholic Church is fully aware of what Leland's plans are, especially for Kristen and they want the nasty peoples plans to grow and escalate - maybe for genuine religious reasons, but I'm beginning to think that our three heroes and maybe their genuine allies at CCHQ are the only ones trying to stop something they don't know is coming and it wouldn't shock me if the Catholic Church ended up being complicit in all this shit.
Next Time...
The Bear season three. That is all.
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