My Cultural Life - Take Two

What's Up?

It's never nice to speak ill of the dead, but there was this guy in my past who really did me a disservice. It was around 1992, either my shop had closed down or it was in its last throes of life. I had started writing again, after a what seemed like years since I last sat in front of a typewriter (or old PC). Because I had started writing stuff for Comics International it had ignited my desire to write a novel again (having written a couple of first drafts previously) and I was about six months into something I called Succubus. It was a story of a happily married man whose wife disappears without a trace and instead of the police and friends doing everything they could, everyone began to forget his wife completely - telling him events that he'd lived through either didn't happen or didn't happen the way the man thought they had. Gradually, his wife disappeared from video tape, from photographs, from everywhere... Until one day he meets someone who had the same thing happen to them.

I was using an old PC with 60meg of hard drive - yes, you read that correctly - 60megabytes; not big enough to take a single video off of my phone. It was Windows 3.1 OS and I knew my way around my PC and I was having a problem with it that I couldn't solve. I can't even remember what it was, only that it was getting worse and needed looking at. A friend of a friend who I had become familiar with through making relationships in the shop was, apparently, a wizard with PCs and I took it round to his place and he said, 'Yeah, no problem' and said it would be ready the next day...

What this 'wizard' did, but neglected to tell me he was going to do, was wipe my hard drive and reinstall none of my programmes! It solved the problem, but lost me six months of work. He didn't tell me he was going to do this drastic measure and therefore I hadn't backed up any of my writing on floppy disks. When I expressed a mixture of heartbreak and apoplectic rage at him he said, 'Well you should have backed it up.' I know, I should have, but, I didn't know he was going to wipe my drive...

I'd written a little over 27,000 words and it was probably riddled with bad grammar and shit sentences. It probably wasn't the best thing I've ever 'written' but it was much better than anything I'd ever written before and structure isn't a problem; the me of 33 years later is a better writer and editor and things can be fixed in the editing room. Now, anyone who has ever had writing ambitions will look at this story and say, 'But, you just had to write it again, you would have rewritten it several times on the way to a finished novel, surely?' The thing was, I sat down determined to catch up on lost time, but nothing came out the way it had and it all felt like a school homework project about writing something from memory alone. Suffice it to say, it never really happened and I've harboured a deep resentment to the guy who fucked me up my hard drive even though he's been dead for nearly 20 years.

On Wednesday night, after a binge-a-thon of current TV, I came up to my office, a little after 10pm, and proceeded to search Bing for images relating to what I'd seen - you know how the blog looks. Because I had three things to write about, I wrote the sub headline and dropped the picture where it goes. However, the second picture didn't drop in the right place - but I didn't realise this - so I did it twice again before discovering something was up. This has happened before, so the way of solving it was to simply delete the pictures, shut down Chrome and start again from the last saved point. I hadn't lost anything so it was the logical thing to do, except I tried to cut and paste the second image into its proper place and it worked, but it wouldn't align. I should have stopped there, but instead I ctrl-z to undo the previous action and I ctrl-z again to go back to where I was before trying to cut and paste my way out of trouble. 

Something bad happened...

There was nothing in the blog. Nothing at all. Six, maybe seven, reviews I'd done since last Saturday were gone! My immediate reaction was to redo my last two actions, I did and still nothing was there. I might have been able to save myself at that point by simply opening Blogger into another window, going to my active blogs page and reopening it, but instead I panicked and shut Chrome down, hoping [HAH!] that all would be fine when I reopened it. There was nothing. Nothing at all. I'd lost all the work I'd done and it wasn't coming back...

It's Thursday morning as I type this and I have to start again. I'm not suggesting the lost blog was the best one I've written, because it probably isn't, but it was cleverly linked because of the way it's written. Because this is essentially a weekly diary of my cultural life, I have a general continuity running through it and I write my best reviews when I've just got out of the specific bath I've just taken - figuratively speaking - which is the best analogy I can think of. I can't even remember everything I've watched, if it wasn't for IMDB on my phone I would have overlooked at least one film, I think there might still be one missing.

So... this could be much different than normal...

Family Affair

My original review opened with great praise for the entire feel of the opening 30 minutes of The Fantastic Four: First Steps before slicing much of it apart or questioning the reasons behind why, at times, this felt like a much longer movie had an axe taken to it. This is a film that promises so much and delivers... only so much. It felt devoid of a place anywhere. The style is faultless; the cod-science is brilliant; the general personality building was just about adequate, but the middle and end felt like it was a subplot taking place behind the main act. 

I don't really get Pedro Pascal's ubiquity and yet he makes a reasonable Reed Richards; but he's not my Reed Richards, not by a long chalk. Vanessa Kirby was much better than I expected, but she's still far too old to play Sue Storm if they wanted to stay faithful to the comics - which on the whole they did. The twist with Johnny Storm is he's not as stupid as you thought he was, but in general Joe Quinn's character felt as though he was there to drive another, ridiculously contrived, sub plot along. However, the woefully underused Ebon Moss-Bacharach as The Thing was a delight; he lit up every scene he was in and captured the essence of Lee and Kirby's Ben Grimm to a tee. 

We heard about an entire subplot which was removed from this film, one involving John Malkovich's 'villain', who was actually Reed's father Nathaniel, who had travelled from the future to steal baby Franklin, but this entire section, which used Julia Garner's Silver Surfer as a foil might have explained her character's sudden volte face in the film's denouement, never got used or was finished. Therefore there are some gaping holes in this movie, but despite this it isn't bad, it just isn't as good as I expected it to be. As a cosmic horror film it's pretty good but it always felt like it was knocking on the door of corny. Julia Garner's Silver Surfer was not as bad as I expected, but equally her character felt underused, with little done to explain why she should betray her boss. Someone at Disney looked at the original film and said it was too long and convoluted and as a result we have a film that promises much and simply doesn't deliver. 6/10

The Evolution of Man

The concluding part of Alien Earth probably wasn't what many expected, except in many ways it was exactly where we were going, albeit with the finer details aside. There was some death and destruction, but in general this was about control as the ones who were being controlled take back control, with some help from a couple of xenomorphs. The overall theme of the show was never really the aliens - they were the smoking gun - it was about what was being created alongside the alien bugs and bogeyman. The 'Lost Boys' were a general annoyance throughout the series, with only Wendy exhibiting a purity that perhaps omnipotence brings, but if you have a smoking gun, you need the hand that's holding it...

The Boy Kavalier has been an excellent antagonist, but even that is brought into question when you understand the true meaning of what he's been doing on his version of Tracey Island. There have been some interesting weaknesses in this series, but like most things Noah Hawley, the ending is usually something you've had loads of clues about, but never managed to piece them all together. Even if the ultimate message of this show was realised, it annoyed a lot of viewers with the journey to get there.

Season two, I expect, will be set many years after this. 

Fake News

One of the great things about The Morning Show is how the story sometimes feels as though it's getting bogged down only for you to realise that it's actually whizzed ahead of you and  is waiting for you to catch up. This second episode felt like there was too much time but not enough detail spent on the idea that Alex (Jennifer Aniston) has been deep-faked and not enough time on Bradley (Reese Witherspoon) and Chip (Mark Duplass) looking as though they're going to work together again.

It felt a little like an old episode with so many of the original cast being involved in things that will ultimately tie everything together, but again it's Billy Crudup's Cory Ellison who gleefully wipes the floor with the other actors as you realise that his smile is there for a reason. It's a great show and while some issues seem to have been conveniently forgotten about, I'm okay with that.

Like a 60s Superman Comic

We're halfway through the second season of Gen V already - woo! Did you know that probably between 1956 and 1969 you could pick up just about every issue of Action Comics or Superman and you probably wouldn't have found much different. Whatever happened in the previous issue was forgotten about so Superman could save Metropolis from this month's threat. This is how this season of Gen V has felt, contrivances like what has happened before can be forgotten about on the conveyor belt of popularity that is this show's underbelly. It really is a massively poorly scripted heap of a mess.

Just because Hamish Linklater appears to be something of a god and has his own agenda - which I'm sure we'll discover what it is and how he's got to the position where he is to be able to enact it - doesn't make this good. He makes a great psychopath/scientist/tortured soul, but he's simply not carrying this patchwork quilt of disgusting ideas and lacklustre plotting. It feels like it was written by a 12-year-old at times and the superpowered pubes was this week's WTF. It simply doesn't feel like a TV drama any longer, but like a puerile comic that has been adapted, dialogue and all.

LA Lives

The search for films made between the mid-1990s and the late 2000s continues - a period when we would have rented films from the video shop so there would have been loads of films we never watched because I didn't want to spend money on them. I remember when Paul Haggis's Crash came out, it was a snap shot film, following the lives of a group of people as they go about their daily lives but end up becoming entwined by circumstances - a kind of six degrees of connection. A racist cop, a black producer and his abused wife, two criminals, a rich woman and other disparate folk who cross each others paths one weekend in LA. It is also the film that has two James Rhodes - War Machine - in it; Don Cheadle and Terrance Howard.

It was an enjoyable movie, which felt like it was a homogenised - PG13 - look at the lives of different people in the Valley. From Sandra Bullock's snobbish, lonely, bitter and angry housewife to Michael Pena's hard working locksmith always labelled by others as bad. My biggest problem with it was I found it tough to focus on the story; maybe the editing didn't agree with me, but it was just an okay thriller, with little of anything special. 6/10

Weird and Pissed Off

This opened the original blog; it was our Saturday night classic for this week (in a series of how many we can find) and as always it was a treat to watch. Ignore some of the cod science, the convenient plot contrivances or the complete chaos of the story, this is a quality cosmic horror story, possibly one of the best. Kurt Russell plays MacReady, who always is, and he's aided and abetted by the likes of Wilfred Brimley (as his career was about to peak), Keith David, Richard Dysart and Donald Moffat - all actors you would have seen in small supporting roles in TV and TV movies.

This remake of the 1951 film The Thing From Another World, which was based on a short story called Who Goes There, is about paranoia, a virus-like alien lifeform and nowhere to hide except everywhere. Set in Antarctica, it is a timeless movie that absolutely barrels along like a contemporary film and has some extraordinary special effects, for 1982. It also has some of the sharpest dialogue you can imagine, with exclamations fitting the real world if anything as crazy was to happen there. So many quotable lines my favourite being the incredulous 'You've got to be fucking kidding me!' When one of the crew sees a head sprout legs and run away. 10/10

Alternate Peace

The latest (or rather last week's) episode of Peacemaker was another almost instantly forgettable instalment. It's been nearly six days since I watched it and I'm struggling to remember much of what happened. It was in places quite compelling and in others 'get the fuck out of here' and the flimsy story - is there actually one? - ends with Chris leaving his reality in favour of the alternate one where he's treated like a hero. This has been a bit of a let down, but it's still far better than Gen V, which I think might stand for Vomit.

First Day Blues

I finally got around to watching Training Day with Denzel Washington and Ethan Hawke, looking so young. It came out during that period of time when I watched films that were on TV or on video and it never really appealed to me back in the Noughties. This is the story of a newly promoted beat cop to detective in drugs, except that's the premise of the story, what it is turns out to be a carefully planned attempt to either use the rookie and turn him into a bad cop or lose him in the subsequent fallout. Except, it never feels like that when you're watching it; it feels like a slightly puzzling series of instalments involving Hawke and Denzel, but they all end up being of consequence to the overall story. It's a watch it carefully and you can see where one of the cops' life is far more fragile than he thought it was. A complex and enjoyable film 7/10

Wizard Number One

We decided recently to watch the entire Harry Potter series of films from the beginning, mainly because it's been years since I watched them and to be honest I remembered so little about Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone I could have been going in a virgin. What a load of shite it is. I mean, it isn't, but you can see how the studio behind it maybe weren't as convinced at its budgetary potential as you might have imagined knowing now what we do now. The special effects were shoddy, I mean really poor; yes a few were okay, but everything from the ghosts to the Cerberus (Fluffy) looked like they were knocked up on an old Amiga consul using codes found in Computer Weekly.

The three kids, Daniel Ratcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint were all thoroughly annoying and startled by everything, but not in a 'dramatic' way, none of the other characters had any real screen time for you to remember anything but the fact you've just been introduced to them and the story was based on a lot of supposition, gut feelings and the need to drive the plot forward. Don't get me started on Voldemort's nose or the bad, switcheroo, plot devices the baddy and Alan Rickman (looking like he was going to enjoy the pay cheque) were forced to endure. But, it was a film for 11 year olds, like the next one will be for 12 years olds and I'm 63. It's just not aged well and I can see why Amazon want to do it again. 5/10 for the kids.  

The Task Master

Frankly, the new Mark Ruffalo TV series Task has felt like a remake of Dope Thief but with less humour and more incompetence. The crew knocking over the drug dealing biker gang are now running out of options and through trying to shift their 12kgs of Fentanyl they finally fall onto the radar of the FBI, which suggests with more than half of the series having not aired yet that there is going to be some kind of unexpected wrinkle about to happen. The interesting development is that while the biker gang deals with the distinct possibility they might have a rat in their ranks, the man in charge of the Task force discovers one of his team might be tipping off the biker gang - which we suddenly realise could be at least two of Ruffalo's three man team, suggesting it will be neither of them and the person we least expect.

Peace Off, Man

I'm really struggling with the overall lack of quality in this second season of Peacemaker. The decision to not have a story and just see if they could develop the characters has backfired and while we finally discover the downside of Chris's preferred new reality it felt like a so what moment rather than something important. This was really a low point in quality, in acting and in general; a slapstick episode with naff comedy and a contrived set up. Even the sudden appearance by Lex Luthor, tying this in with the Superman film, didn't do anything to enhance this at all. This has been a massive let down and it has only helped with the demise of superhero shows. I'm bitterly disappointed that this could jump a shark with such gusto and do it so badly. This episode especially felt like it was made cheaply, which considering it was written and directed by Gunn doesn't auger well for the coming years...

What's Up Next?

Hopefully not a week like this one. The Wigtown Book Festival is on for the next week and a bit, so it'll be interesting to see what time we get to even watch anything. Not that we're going to be attending - the wife is working and I'm doing everything else for the next nine days. We also have a house guest for the weekend and with the exception of this Saturday, the weather forecast doesn't look too bad. 

Viewing is going to be much of the same, TV wise, and will include some things you might not typically expect me to watch; plus there's a new series of Slow Horses which I'm not watching until at least five episodes are in the can. 

As usual, blah de blah de blah...