Pop Culture: Versus

Some spoilers aren't really spoiling anything...

Anger and Despair

Earlier this year I reviewed a four-part drama and then the follow-up documentary about it. It was one of the most anger-inducing examples of how this country does miscarriages of justice better than any country on the planet and this week we watched a further follow-up that just compounded that belief.

Mr Bates versus The Post Office: The Impact was the sequel to the original documentary. It took another look at the [ahem] impact the drama and documentary had on the Post Office Inquiry and the people involved in the case. It didn't do anything at all to appease the sense of anger and injustice the poor souls who were fucked over by the Post Office and a number of governments to simply stop the name of the PO from becoming synonymous with cunts and bastards. I, as you can see, have not lost a shred of my anger and disgust at this awful scandal and I suppose a lot of that is because back in 1987 we considered buying a Post Office in - of all places - Gretna Green and while it was years before the Horizon scandal, it wasn't impossible that we could have run a PO for years and then been fucked over by them (or even been screwed over by the predecessor to Horizon, a system called Capture which it now seems might have fucked over a lot more innocent people).

The Impact looked at new cases of people who lost a lot more than just money; it also looked into some of the original victims and how their claims for compensation are going and still made it look as though the Post office was/is trying to get away with paying out as little as possible because it's still the Post Office making these final decisions. The fact we live in a country where nearly 30 years later we're relying on documentaries and average decent human beings to try and hold a corporation to account is despicable and disgusting; if nothing else the new Labour government should make sure that every single one of the poor sods fucked over by the Post Office should get more than they will ever need again and the cunts responsible for that despair should be locked away for a long long time.

The Mass Debate

I appreciate that as far as politics is concerned I'm very much a leftie, almost bordering on communist. I no longer consider the UK Labour party as anything other than neoliberal and while I root for Democrats in US elections, I am of the belief that neither of the USA's main political parties are anything other than right wing. in fact, right wing politics across the globe is having a day in the sun. However as Poland (and the UK to a certain extent) has proved, people realise that after a while of being ruled by authoritarian right wing arseholes, the normal person in the street is usually the person who suffers as a result. Right wing policies do not work for the workers and all they tend to do is make lists of all the things people should be wary of or even hate. When you have enough people who are prepared to put aside their political principles to support someone who says it's okay to hate immigrants you're headed for problems...

The problem with right wing politics - even if you don't think of yourself as being particularly right wing - is the coverage it gets in our very biased media (and I appreciate that some people will argue with me that the media isn't biased, but these people are usually wankers). Take the highly entertaining Harris vs Trump Televised Debate on the US ABC network. In the UK, the Daily Sieg Heil (or Mail as some people call it), the Express, the Telegraph and maybe the Sun (but I tend to avoid this fascist comic book when I do my research because any contact with Murdoch tends to make me break out in a rash) were all quick to attack Harris, while making sure they didn't praise Trump too much, probably because they would have realised that many people will have seen some of his rants, especially about wind turbines giving you cancer and peoples' pets in Ohio being eaten by Haitian immigrants, and realised that a fucking madman was running for office (again). 

However, it was the BBC and Sarah Smith - the daughter of the celebrated Labour leader John Smith and the Beeb's North American correspondent - who really managed to astound the country by declaring the debate 'too close to call' and avoiding some of Trump's crazier assertions, insults and lies. It was like some editor at the BBC thought, "No. we won't subject British people to this wholesale ranting of a very stupid man." Except, we know from the national broadcaster that even though their mates the Tories are no longer in power it hasn't stopped them from doubling down on the scrutiny of the new Labour government, making stuff headline news that they would have ignored had it been the Tories. But Sarah Smith? You have to ask yourself whether she is reading out editorial rhetoric or if she actually believes the shit she's talking? Is her job at the BBC worth compromising her socialist roots or does she subscribe to the current BBC stand of not criticising right wing parties where possible? If so, she should be ashamed of herself. Why? Because it was clear, Harris won by a country mile. She was clear, precise and yes a little light on policy, but she didn't ramble and rant like Trump, didn't make false accusations and just to emphasise a point, he didn't talk about any of his would be policies either; he just told people how horrible other people were and how good looking he is... 

The BBC's refusal to be seen condemning any right wing party is tantamount to them running a news story about a child killer and suggesting there were mitigating circumstances because the children who were killed were rude to their killer... I agree in freedom of speech, but not in cases where those freedoms are abused and slanted towards one - dark - side of the political spectrum.

Trailer Trash

At some point in the future the final (Hah!) film in the Venom trilogy will appear. Venom 3: The Last Dance is likely to be as shite as the first two Venom movies as famous film stars line up to receive a huge paycheque from Sony to prostitute themselves one last (Hah!) time. Mega-Rich Tom Hardy is likely to never appear as Venom again unless he's offered lots of money; whether the script or film in general is any good won't bother this once great British actor because he can fuck about as a non-superhero. The final trailer for the final (Hah!) film does little to make people want to go and see this horrendous pile of horse shit and I say 'horse' because someone in the special effects team thought that merging a symbiote with a horse would be a novel idea. Nothing, I repeat, NOTHING about this trailer makes me think it's going to be anything but the same old load of shite the first two films were. It will have the same tired old jokes, the same embarrassing situations and lots and lots of pointless exposition. Do yourself a favour, don't go to the cinema to watch this, go and have a long and enjoyable wank instead...

Arriving the same day as the final (Hah!) Venom trailer was a preview of the third adaptation of Stephen King's first big blockbuster novel Salem's Lot, this time a film rather than a TV mini-series. It looks atmospheric and has Lewis Pullman in it. Pullman, son of Bill, is currently one of my favourite actors; not only was he brilliant as Calvin Evans in Lessons in Chemistry, he's also pretty good in the time travel lunacy that is Outer Range. This new adaptation also stars Alfre Woodard, Bill Camp and William Sadler, in what looks like a parred down version of the book - notably there doesn't appear to be a Barlow in it. It's out on HBO and if I had any concerns about it they might be that this film was finished in 2021 and is now coming out on a streaming platform three years after additional photography happened. This is out October 3rd, so not long to wait.

Boston Bungle

You know when you watch a film and at the end of it you think, "it wasn't bad, but it wasn't that good either"? Well, The Instigators is one of those movies. Despite the talents of Matt Damon, Casey Affleck, Ron Perlman and Ving Rhames, there was something about it that just didn't feel... right.

Damon plays Rory, a man who is in therapy for a number of things, who feels that life isn't really worth living any longer after trying everything his therapist - Hong Chau - suggests. Somehow, he finds himself being asked to be involved in a heist to steal from the Mayor of Boston's campaign fund. Quite how and why isn't really clear, but appears to be a couple of guys who run a bakery, who might be organised crime, hiring an idiot to assemble a small team to knock off the Mayor's stash, but everything goes wrong almost from the word go. Involved in this is ex-petty con Affleck as Cobby, a sarcastic guy who makes you think he's been brought into this because the guys hiring them want it to fail - which is clearly not the case.

What follows is a catalogue of disasters as Rory and Cobby first escape the heist with little or no money but a bracelet belonging to the Mayor, which just happens to have the combination for his safe etched on the back. Then there's a hostage situation of manufactured means - involving the therapist - and then another heist against the mayor that goes equally tits up because of the two men and their raging incompetence. The thing is barely a second of the movie rings true; not the set up, not the heists nor the way they play out and definitely not the ending. It's just a slight enjoyable mess with Damon and Affleck both good in their roles but obviously not in the film they should have been in.

This Week on Grimm

Way over halfway through season two and the difference between this and the first season is astounding. Yes, it's still a bit like it was written by someone with little or no knowledge of fairy tales, police procedure and relationships - whether they're between humans or Wesen, but the thing is the introduction of a general on-going story works far better than the standalone monster of the week stuff of season one. If I did have a problem with the show it's probably the lack of imagination regarding the varieties of Wesen and the general shoddiness of the special effects. However, season two has introduced an interesting twist with all of this season so far having Nick discovering his boss is part Hexenbiest, an amnesiac girlfriend, and the beginning of an assemblage of a team, which is reminiscent of Buffy. There are other things going on, a lot of them annoying or [ahem] a bit far fetched, but most of those are to do with the way Portland's police department do their business and why there appears to only be two detectives in a city of 650,000 people. It's a bit of fun though.

Feels Like the First Time

As any regular reader will know, I love a good time travel/loop/paradox movie and Déjà Vu is exactly that. Tony Scott - brother of Ridley - made bigger, bolder and far more glossy movies than his [living] brother and this was no exception, even if it had a bit of a grainy quality to it.

Starring Denzel Washington, Val Kilmer, Jim Caviezel, Paula Patton and Adam Goldberg, Déjà Vu is about a massive terrorist explosion on a ferry in New Orleans that kills over 550 people and the people trying to piece together what, how and why it happened. One of those involved is Washington as ATF agent Doug Carlin who is very good at his job and quickly picks up on some interesting things, including the death of a woman who has all the signs of being involved in the explosion but was dragged out of the river ten minutes before the bomb went off. This, to all intents and purposes, is a victim of the bomber but not a victim of the bomb, so finding out who she was and how she was involved is key to finding the killer. Enter Kilmer's FBI team packing experimental equipment that blows Doug Carlin's mind... They have equipment that can literally see into the past, but when Doug accidentally does something with a laser pen it sets off a chain of events that means there might not be a chance to catch the killer but also stop the ferry from exploding in the first place and as with all films of this kind it becomes a race, literally, against time.

It's an unusual 'time' movie because it's a big budget Hollywood film, but it's also unusual because there are clues almost from the beginning that things are going to happen except you don't see them until they... happen. I like Washington and his penchant for making strange films; eight years before this he made a film called Fallen, which I'll be revisiting very soon...

Demon Daze

How do you make a film about demonic possession, serial killers and make it very very nasty and yet you don't have any twirling heads, extreme violence, bad language or sex? The thing about Fallen is that it does all of those things; it is almost the perfect horror/cop film - if such a thing exists.

Denzel Washington plays a Philadelphia detective - John Hobbes - who has brought a nasty serial killer to justice and on the night of the execution, the killer warns the cop that he's basically not seen the last of him and he will enact some kind of revenge. Obviously, this wasn't taken terribly seriously, but the killer gives Hobbes a strange clue to look into and the clue leads to a former police officer who was believed to have been a serial killer himself back in the 1960s. Then a series of homicides appear, almost copycat perfect to the murders committed by the executed killer and before long Hobbes is chasing his tail as the demon who jumps from person to person starts to not only taunt the detective but threatens him and the people he cares about the most. Things escalate to the point where Hobbes starts to see that the demon is doing the same to him as it had done to the police officer in the 1960s and it becomes a guessing game as to who or what is going to win.

This movie was a bit of a flop at the box office, but over the years has developed a real cult following and it isn't difficult to see why. This is a taut and edge of your seat thriller; a proper horror movie without any proper horror movie tropes; an absolutely brilliant detective thriller and the only thing that lets it down is the lack of explanations for some of the characters, but that's really just a minor complaint because this is one of the best - probably second best - film about demonic possession ever made and completely different to the other great film about demonic possession. If you get the chance watch this movie, it's absolutely brilliant.

Wedding Vows

I suppose it isn't a recommendation when Ryan Reynolds says that one of the films he's least proud of is The Proposal although, to be honest I don't really know what his problem is with it as he has made much worse films (just).

Admittedly it is an uneven, slightly strange film - not least because Sandra Bullock plays a Canadian and Reynolds - a Canadian - plays an Alaskan American. Other than that it is tonally all over the place and the plot jumps about all over the place as well, without anything really happening to make anyone watching expect the plot to go the way it does. Bullock (who is 12 years older than her male co-star and pretty much looks it in this movie) plays a nasty, pernicious and much loathed editor of a major publisher in New York. Her visa has expired and she has done nothing about renewing it and has ignored every prompt from her lawyer, her employer and her downtrodden assistant, Andrew (played by Reynolds), so she's going to be deported, lose her job and everything she's worked for and it couldn't happen to a nicer [read: nastier] person. Andrew, her PA, is a human doormat; he's treated badly and while he hates his boss, he's desperate to either become an editor or be published. She wouldn't be as successful if it wasn't for him and she treats him crappier than shit on her shoe... This is tonal scene setter #1.

But she's getting deported and needs to come up with a plan, so she tells everyone she's marrying Andrew and we wander into tonal shift #2. He, sensing he has an advantage, goes from placid forelock tugger to self-assured borderline blackmailer - telling his boss what he wants from this arrangement. She agrees and they go off to Immigration to fill out the necessary forms only to be faced with Denis O'Hare's Immigration officer who tells them that he is going to prove that they're just marrying for convenience and it will end badly for both of them. We then enter tonal shift #3 as Bullock and Reynolds fly to Alaska for his grandmother's 90th birthday party and she realises that her lowly assistant belongs to one of the richest families in Alaska, who own most of the town they're in and live in a house that makes most mansions look like bungalows. They announce their wedding plans and things basically happen from this point on. Tonal shifts #4 and #5 involve Bullock liking his family and then suddenly developing a conscience until we reach tonal shift #6 where Reynolds realises he's fallen in love with Bullock, despite there being very little evidence to support this.

Don't get me wrong; I've seen worse Reynolds movies and I really don't rate Bullock in anything apart from Speed, so this film was actually 100 minutes of reasonable light comedy fun, but it has a flyweight script and I can sort of understand why Reynolds has a personal disliking of this because he's essentially the straight man to Bullock's comedic role and she's simply not funny and I can't fathom how she has managed to have such a successful movie career. It wasn't crap though.

Future to the Back

About three weeks ago, I watched a Tube of You video created by AI of a trailer for a famous film done in a 1950s style. It was bright, had just the right kind of voiceover to make you think it was a 1950s movie and about one in every three I watched, I thought, "I'd watch that if it was a real film."

Some of these fake trailers are excellent, while others - either poorly written and described or using a lesser capable AI programme - are literally all over the place with the same character appearing differently in every different scene they are in. A perfect example is the Guardians of the Galaxy 'trailer' which depicted Groot three different ways in three different appearances in the same video; while Rocket remained reasonably similar apart from what he was wearing. These AI variants go heavy on the heaving breasts and glamorous looks and every leading man looks like some extra from a Gary Cooper western of the early 1950s. Some of the trailers make the characters look like the people who play them IRL, which feels a little like cheating (if you can understand that rather odd concept regarding these flimsy offerings), while others have such poor AI CGI that it starts to feel a little hallucinatory. There are an awful lot of these floating about the Tube of You - don't fall down a rabbit hole.

The Rings of Zzzzzz

What can I say about this second season that will stop me from falling asleep? What can I say about this second season that would make those of you who haven't been tempted to watch to change your minds? The answer to both of these questions is - fuck all. The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Zzzzzzzzzz is just interminably dull and boring. It is like watching rocks form or rust form on metal. It is just not exciting in the slightest. I'm sure there are people out there that really care about this series, but if there are then they need to find a new hobby or maybe wank more, possibly using pictures of an orc or one of the hairier dwarves to aid with erections (or moistness). All that money spent on a huge pile of shite. Amazon could have paid their staff more money or maybe not monitored them when they needed a shit. Maybe Jeff Bezos could have given it to the homeless or the terminally ill to make their lives less shite. But no, he chose to make a fucking TV series that only really anally retentive nerds wanted and even they've probably fucked off to watch alien porn films or maybe dream about an episode of The Chase where all the chasers are naked. This is a fucking awful TV show. Channel 5 do more interesting things.

This Will Be the Last Time

I have a confession to make (although it's probably the third or fourth time I've made it on this blog); I quite like the old Top Gear trio of Clarkson, May and Hammond. I enjoy James May's TV shows and I think Clarkson's Farm is one of the best documentary shows about farming ever and does a good job of spotlighting problems the UK farming community has; in fact it does a far better job than the BBC's anodyne Countryfile. We have watched all of the Amazon series The Grand Tour and after who knows how many years it draws to a close with this final part called One For the Road. 

The final ever episode takes the trio of buffoons across Zimbabwe - not the most obvious place to finish a long lasting (23 years) relationship with viewers, but it's clear after a while that they were going to make the most of it. However, Zimbabwe might not have been the oddest choice after all, because when the three men were presenting Top Gear, their first road trip was to Botswana where they concluded that trip on Kudu Island in the middle of the Botswana salt flats. As the trio ended their final Grand Tour, they decided to go across the border, into Botswana, to return to the site of that first road trip, which kind of proves that these things are not random at all, but meticulously planned long before the buffoons reach the country they're driving across... 

As for the show itself; it was funnier than the last couple and that might have been because they all knew they weren't going to be doing one again. When you look past all the scripted stuff - because there is obviously a rudimentary script guideline - there were times when they genuinely enjoyed themselves and other times when you could see that they realised this was a poignant moment in their 22 year career of hosting car shows. Zimbabwe provided a quite spectacular backdrop, but in many ways it was never going to be as good as some of their other jaunts - such as the USA, Vietnam or the controversial South American road trip. The best lines as usual came from the erudite James May, especially when he asked if he could delete both their names from his phone when the show concluded; "You're both together; the world's smallest cunt and the world's biggest cunt." Obviously 'cunt' was bleeped out, but you knew what he was saying. Then there was Hammond's, "We're not going to have to live in the same old peoples' homes, are we?" Clarkson, as usual, was just Mr Unwoke, but even that was toned down.

The thing about this trio is that taken out of this context they all have made extremely entertaining and informative shows. Hammond's ability to fix things and understanding how other things work has allowed him to build a niche as the man who does things. May has learned to cook and produced two extremely worthwhile cooking series for Amazon, as well as his travelogue shows, which, if I had one complaint, are just not long enough sometimes. And then, of course, there's Clarkson's Farm, a show that has really annoyed Clarkson haters because he isn't anything like the Clarkson behind the wheel of a car. Yes, his on screen persona is brash, Northern and privileged; he says things that in 2024 are not regarded as tasteful, but he has turned farming into a spectator sport; his relationship with Lisa, his partner; Charlie his 'boss' and Kaleb his friend and assistant on the farm has meant that it's only the really determined people who dislike him. His jobs outside of his real life are designed to upset and annoy, but actually this is a man who will probably die of a massive heart attack and leave a huge hole in the lives of the people who actually see the real Jeremy - a man who loves pigs, has changed his mind about Brexit and stopped supporting the Tory party.

The Grand Tour and to a certain extent Top Gear are of a different era of television (especially now that the replacements on the BBC show have had to stop over health and safety concerns and the accident that almost killed Freddie Flintoff) but I shall miss them. 

Next Time...

Autumn is well and truly here. Will I like Agatha All Along? Especially as it might be a musical... The Old Man is back and if you remember I was so pissed off about the unexpected cliffhanger ending and the fact there's a second season I vowed not to watch it, but have since changed my mind. Obviously the Tolkien thing is still going on and this week I didn't fall asleep during it but I also wrote a scathing review (see above) and we're committed to it even though we've pretty much decided we're not going to indulge in season three. There are a couple of other things, but they won't get reviewed next week - Slow Horses we're waiting until we have all six - and anything else that pops up, like for instance The Perfect Couple and we might get around to watching more Mr Inbetween...

We still have a stack of films to watch, but TV is again starting to become the dominant format - as it often is from September until the end of November. Whatever we watch is difficult to forecast in advance and as with this week's effort I'm trying to branch out a little. As always, you'll find out next Saturday.