My Cultural Life - The Runs

What's Up?

The Epstein Files have been released. I said to the wife less than two weeks ago, "You watch, it'll be loads of redacted stuff and only half of them will be released." I actually said this; the wife would verify it if she could.

[He did - the wife]

Did people seriously believe that files would be released that could possibly incriminate many of the world's former and presently most powerful people? I mean, really? Did you not realise that they waited the full time possible to release them so they could put black lines through everything remotely incriminating, unless it involved people Donald Trump doesn't like or couldn't care less about?

Ornery folk ain't never gonna learn what's in them there files...

Run Like Hell

Edgar Wright's remake of The Running Man felt a little more like Stephen King's original story (but it has been over 40 years since I last read that, so...) and for most of the film's duration it was a very enjoyable, if slightly camp, adaptation. It was the last five minutes or so that let it down and this is weird, for two reasons. 1) Everything I've seen or heard about the movie suggests the ending lets it down and 2) I remember seeing the trailer for this about seven or eight months ago and something in that trailer was omitted from the final print. Now, that isn't unusual, lots of trailers use footage that doesn't make it, but this specific section of the trailer had Josh Brolin explaining to Glen Powell why he can't win the Running Man competition because of the financial hit his company would take. This made me think that Wright's vision of a media-run dystopian USA - quite a recurring theme in recent years - maybe had the ending changed because it wasn't as ... revolutionary as it ended up being.

Is it any good? Like I said, until the final ten minutes or so, it's a seat of your pants action thriller. Yes, there's elements of it that feel a little too like the Awkwafina/John Cena comedy from last year called Jackpot, which is essentially the same movie but played for laughs, but in general it's not bad. It could have done with being a little more serious at times, maybe a look at just how the Network manipulates and doctors stuff, or even just how much of the government it runs would have made the viewer realise what Powell's Ben Richards was truly up against. It was, in general, an interesting and mildly enjoyable way to spend a Saturday night, that otherwise would have been the pub had the weather not been so awful. 7/10

Holy Mystery, Benoit 

This is the third Benoit Blanc movie that Rian Johnson has made with Daniel Craig - who's almost made as many of these as he did James Bond films. I don't think they get any better, I just think they become more convoluted and longer. This story of a monsignor murdered by a member of his dwindling parish felt like a cross between fire and brimstone and hell hath no fury like a devotee scorned, wasn't that clever really, it's just dressed up that way to make Blanc seem more Sherlock Holmes than a Baker Street impostor. Because that is essentially what Johnson has created - a new Holmes or Poirot or Marples, but without their particular charms... 

Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery puts Josh O'Connor's Jud Duplenticy in the centre circle as both prime suspect and obviously innocent victim. He's the new assistant priest sent wherever he had to go (but clearly England, despite being told it was New York State) to work with a senior figure in the church who was losing his congregation through his increasingly hostile sermons. The monsignor - played by Josh Brolin - upsets one of his faithful flock enough for them to kill him, but why? What secret did he hold? How could someone create a crime that seemed almost impossible to commit? This movie was two and a half hours long, it could have been an hour less and still packed the weak and feeble punch it delivered - especially as Josh O'Connor's character in a previous life was as a boxer. I just don't think these films are particularly good; that said they're relatively enjoyable without taxing you too much and never really too heavy. I expect we'll get another one of these for Christmas 2027 or 2028 and I will probably watch it. 5/10

It's Over

Jesus H Christ, there was one moment in the finale of It - Welcome to Derry which required you to suspend most of your free thinking abilities. I won't spoil it for all my readers who will ignore my warnings and still watch this heap of arse scrapings, but it needed added ghost to get the story over the line. This was fucking abysmal. This started brilliantly, but shot its (and It's) load inside the first two episodes, we all know the only way is down after that. It was never going come back - at least, not until next year. If that's the case, I'm not sure I can be persuaded to drink the Kool Aid next time. Pennywise is becoming the new Freddy or Jason...

Expletive Deleted

You will be hard pressed to see a better, more funnier movie this or any year than I Swear, the story of a Galashiels man's struggle with Tourette's Syndrome. John Davidson is quite well known to people around my age; he first came to prominence in the 1980s while trying to make people aware of Tourette's and how it affects his life. It is genuinely funny; Davidson - played quite brilliantly by Robert Aramayo - is the first person to admit it and from almost the opening minute, when he calls the queen a cunt, you know you are watching the story of a special man, who has overcome so much and now has been rewarded with an MBE for services to health and the Tourette's cause. Maxine Peake plays his mate's mum, a former mental health nurse, who can see that John is desperately unhappy, so takes him under her wing to bring the best in him out.

This is a phenomenal movie. It possibly rates as one of the best British made films I have seen this century; it might even be close to being one of the best films I've ever seen. It is a docudrama and is as much educational as it is emotional and also entertaining; it borders on tragic at times, but those moments are what makes it such a quality feature. I have seen three or four bloody brilliant movies in 2025, this might be the best one. 10/10

Laugh, I Almost Did

On Tuesday night, we started a new journey; one I didn't expect to be going on. On Tuesday night, we started watching The Marvelous Mrs Maisel, with Rachel Brosnahan as Midge Maisel, a woman who finds herself in the world of stand-up comedians and after spending four years trying to help her husband become one, she ends up being far more successful than he'd ever hoped... But I expect I'm getting ahead of myself; as opening episodes go I was not hooked, but I saw enough to make me want to watch some more. Given the ridiculously high rating it has on IMDB and the fact that I did laugh at the opener and was rather stunned by Brosnahan's boobs making a very unexpected appearance, during her first stand-up routine; I expect this is going to be an enjoyable 43 episodes of fun. I shall drop back into reviewing this, now and again.

Fall... Asleep?

I was really looking forward to season two of Fallout. I seemed to recall a slightly anarchic dystopian series, with crazy creatures and Mad Max-styled lunacy. So when we had a five minute 'Previously on Fallout' section at the front, I expected to have remembered a lot of it, but I didn't. After that some stuff happened but I can't really remember much; something about a dinosaur's mouth - not a real one - and Kyle What'sisface giving us a forgettable dialogue over a transmitter. It was just a bit meh and not at all as fun as I seemed to think it was (or others thought it would be)...

Free Will

Now that Carol has 'apologised' to the hive mind of humanity, everyone is moving back to Albuquerque and she doesn't feel so isolated. She's begins to form almost a relationship with Zosia and learns that the hive mind has its own individuality, but it's not really fooling her because she is still planning or at least that's how it seems. Pluribus has really just meandered for the last few weeks and this was without a doubt the meandering of the lot. All the media has been talking about this show for most of the last week; it's Apple TV+'s biggest hit apparently and it's got everybody talking. While I've not doubt this is the case, it really does need something to happen and as Manousos zeroes in on Carol, the hive mind of humanity seem unsure about what the future might hold. I haven't fallen out of love with this, but after eight episodes, five of those have been as illuminating as a computer screen picture reel. Nothing happens! Maybe we might get an episode where something happens that feels like an important step rather than the feeling we're having the piss taken out of us at times. Season finale next week; it needs a boost.

Sea Creature Feature

I'm not sure what is happening with The War Between the Land and the Sea because it's gone a bit wonky and logic seems to have taken a backseat. Sea Devil diplomat - Gugu Mbatha-Raw - has suddenly realised she loves Russell Tovey's Barclay and vice versa. Some humans try to blow up the fish people then make it sound like it was the fish people's fault and there's not a lot of war going on. I'm not sure this is going to get finished...

What's Up Next?

By the time you've sat down to read this next week Christmas will have been over a couple of days and there will be just one episode of bloody Stranger Things to go...

There's probably shit going on this coming week; I know I'm doing the pub's Christmas quiz on Sunday, so next week's effort might be even smaller than this. Whatever. 

My Cultural Life - To Rate or To Overrate

What's Up?

A bit of education you won't be interested in. Venezuela isn't the enemy it has been portrayed in the media for many years. Venezuela has been a country run by left wing governments for many years. This left wing government did not seize power in some coup, they were elected, continually, in fair and ratified elections. The problem for Venezuela is that it is extremely oil rich. It is one of the richest countries on the planet. 

The USA and the rest of the western civilisations don't like this. They like their oil rich countries to be run by right wing, authoritarian regimes that they have some control over. The scenes of thousands of people leaving Venezuela in recent years - heading for the Colombian or Brazilian borders - were not the poor and disaffected, they were the country's right wing; the already rich and people who were intent on stripping Venezuela of a government that put the people first. Keeping Venezuela in the news became difficult; we got many largely made up stories over the last decade, but when you have a country that uses its oil to improve the lives of many, the last thing you want to do is have news stories about how nice it is to live in a country that isn't run by corrupt right wing arseholes.

Venezuela has been a constant thorn in the side of the USA, as you can currently see at the moment, as the US targets anything coming out of the country and claims it is drug related. Venezuela doesn't have a drug problem and even if Colombian drug lords were using it as a port to ship their wares from - which they are not - it is no excuse for military action on levels never seen before when there was an actual war on drugs. Trump and the USA will do anything they can to get rid of the left wing government and put someone more 'accommodating' in power. That would mean the end of free health care, free schools and university, an end to house improvements, subsidized travel costs and lower crime rates.

The Nobel peace prize winner María Corina Machado is a right wing politician. She has been working in the interests of Venezuela's rich and right wing supporters; she has some following in her own country, but most of her fans are ex-pat Venezuelans who want to return to their country but not while the 'commies' are in control. The world doesn't really like left wing governments, it specially doesn't like them when they have something the USA wants. This is why Cuba is left alone, despite the tensions between it and the USA. Cuba doesn't have any oil or rare earth minerals and its cigars can be obtained through the right channels. 

The Maduro government will be overthrown and like other countries that have been 'rescued by democracy' - such as Iraq, Syria, Libya - Venezuela will no longer be talked about in the press and that's when the press should be focusing on it the most...

That 70s Movie

I cannot believe that I have gone 25 years without seeing this film. I cannot believe that I was never tempted by it, given the subject matter. Yet, here I am, sitting here reviewing a movie at 63 that I should have reviewed at 48, when I was still too old... Almost Famous is a fantastic thing, especially the Director's Cut, which added an extra 25 minutes to the running time. Even at two and a half hours it could have been twice as long and still it would have been excellent. This is Cameron Crowe's semi-autobiographical story about how he made it as a rock journalist, in the early 1970s, despite only being 15 years of age.

Patrick Fugit plays William Miller, who through good writing gets himself a gig accompanying an 'almost famous' rock band on the final leg of their US tour. Billy Crudup and Jason Lee play the band's two frontmen, the singer and the guitarist; while Kate Hudson plays one of their groupies, the adorable 'Penny Lane.' Frances McDormand plays William's crazy, new-old age non-hippy, mother and Zooey Deschanel his deeply angry sister, but everybody in this film is a star. It is a truly bitter-sweet story which examines the seedy side of a touring band trying to make it big. It's a road movie but also a coming of age fable and it has a great soundtrack. 9/10

Two ShIts

The first film was great, how can we improve on it? I know, let's make it longer; much longer. Make it a little quest thing; have lots more special effects and a bunch of annoying adults. It Chapter Two was all of that and more. Nearly three hours when it could have been an hour and a half. It just went on and on. It had none of the first films suspense or jeopardy; none of the humour or the pathos. It was just one long drawn out special effect. I thought the scenes with the Losers as kids were good because they were obviously filmed when the original movie was made, but some of the scenes were wrong - either they were things that didn't happen or no one bothered to check the continuity of the first feature. Yes, there are scenes that appear to set up the TV series (which, apparently had already been mooted when the first chapter came out), but I still don't expect that from a feature film, really; despite having nearly three hours to play with. All in all, it felt like an episode of Little Britain edited to look like a horror film... 5/10

Fear Is The Key

Oh just shoot me now... Andy Muschietti isn't quite a one-trick pony, but he's almost there. His original It was a really good movie, I personally enjoyed The Flash, despite many people hating it, but everything else has been... poor. It - Welcome to Derry is a perfect example of why he should consider moving into insurance sales or maybe yogurt pot production. The penultimate episode of this increasingly (or is that decreasingly) shite TV show looked at the disaster at the black servicemen's club and was one of the slowest small buildings to ever be consumed by a raging fire, ever. We're talking about a building the size of two garages, but it managed to take almost half the episode to burn it down, allowing most of the key characters to escape. 

The carnage has fed Pennywise enough, so he's off to sleep for another 27 years. While It heads for It's bed, Dick Halloran finally has a vision that's useful and the real reason for all of this bullshit is finally revealed and boy... is it a flimsy, poorly executed, plotting disaster, with a switchback 'surprise' that, to be fair, was unexpected, but really didn't do anything but make me roll my eyes and wish the fucking nonsense was finally over. It will be next week. If there's a season two I'm not sure I'm going anywhere near it.

Rough Einstein

It's been nearly 30 years since I last watched Good Will Hunting, so it was a little like the first time. The story of a boy genius who is also the most annoying belligerent shit ever to exist. Matt Damon - looking very young - is the eponymous Will Hunting, facing prison but able to solve mathematical problems that would stump Einstein. He is given the chance of redemption by Stellen Skarsgård, but must attempt to remain in therapy sessions once a week with Shaun Maguire - played by Robin Williams - despite finding them insufferable and way too personal. Throw Minnie Driver into the mix as his on/off clever girlfriend and - an even younger looking - Ben Affleck as his best friend Chuckie and you have a really solid film that actually feels a little dated, all apart from Williams, who was having a real superstar period when this came out. It's always going to be a solid 8/10. 

Never Again

Usually, if I watch the first episode of something and I think it's shite I rarely continue watching it. I might, sometimes, watch two, maybe three parts before condemning it to the scrap heap of shit programmes. With Down Cemetery Road, I pretty much nailed it after the first episode. I said it was a load of bollocks then but because the wife wanted to carry on, we did. I should have stopped. We both should have stopped, because by the end of the final part, even the wife was slagging it off. It was excrement of the stinkiest kind. A 1970s sitcom about government fuckery, the torture of innocent soldiers and the subsequent operation to have as many people disappeared as possible. It was without a sense of suspense. It had no jeopardy. It was badly acted. I doubt it will get a second season, but if it does, I will download the first part, burn it onto a DVD and then take a big shit on the top of said DVD before posting it to Emma Thompson.

The Accidental Diplomat

The Doctor Who spin-off series has arrived and The War Between the Land and the Sea was mildly entertaining. This is probably because it doesn't have the Doctor in it, but he was referenced at least once in the first part and I expect he will be mentioned again (he was, twice in part two). Russell Tovey plays a low level UNIT grunt, charged with sorting out transport for people far more important than himself, who mistakenly gets called to an incident involving a dead Sea Devil, killed by fishermen when it got trapped in a net. He's along to watch the professionals prevent an all-out war with our big fishy cousins until our big fishy cousins decide he needs to be the diplomat to discuss a peace treaty between humans and homo aqua [some idiot's name for them, not mine].

Gugu Mbatha-Raw plays the head of the Sea Devil delegate - she looks like a hybrid human, while her companions look more fishy, some even codlike. I'm not sure where this is going to go; presumably humans will do something very stupid and start a war that only someone ill-equipped can stop. The first part definitely eels, sorry feels, like a Doctor Who thing, but equally it also feels less Doctor Who-ey. If that makes any sense...

Hey, I've watched enough shite to firmly declare that my jury is out on this one.

A Journey

We watched the first part of some Channel 4 programme where Sandi Toksvig travels from Marseille to the Italian border, along the French Riviera, by train. I like the Dane, but this was hard work and felt slightly pointless. I might be reaching celebrity travelogue burn out. I'm not sure I will watch any more...

A Jaysun Stayfum Movie

It's been a while since we last watched a Jaysun Stayfum film, so we remedied that by watching the generally meh Homefront, where the English action hero with a dodgy line in general acting plays a former DEA cop who retires after a drug bust goes a little bit ... actually, I'm not really sure why he retired, all I know is he was sporting a terrific mullet. Fast forward two years and he's moved to somewhere else in Louisiana with his 10-year-old daughter, we never knew about, a year after the wife we never knew he had died of something we never find out about. 

His daughter gets bullied by an arsehole at school so she deals with it by beating the bully up and somehow ends up starting a war between the beat up kid's arsehole mother - Kate Bosworth - and her family. It's standard Jaysun Stayfum fayre; he plays a one-man army with a gentle side who takes out a small platoon of wankers in extremely violent fashion. Head wanker is James Franco as a man who supposedly runs the drug business in the town Jaysun Stayfum has moved to, but spends a lot of time being an absolute twat. Winona Ryder - pre Stranger Things career revival - plays his girlfriend as a cheap ex hooker, while Clancy Brown plays the sheriff whose honesty and integrity seems all over the shop. Frank Grillo is also in it, but he doesn't last that long. 4/10 

The Age of Stupid

I'm sure most people have at some point in their Facebook (or TikTok) lives clicked on a Reel and watched some cute and very short video of a dog, a cat or something 'funny'. Reels are big business now, with dedicated 'studios' making 30+ second films on an industrial scale to gain a response from the growing number of complete and utter morons who inhabit the internet... Many of these reels are now AI generated, which really should make people understand that, at the moment, they have little to fear from AI if they have a working brain. I got fooled into looking at TWO AI generated reels, presumably designed to garner as much response in comments, likes and shares as possible. The first one was 'filmed' in a wildlife cameraman stylee, where there were two sheep, one standing on the bank of a raging river, the other standing static on a log in said 'raging' river. Along comes a male lion, who walks down the steep side of the riverbank and grabs the sheep, flips it onto his back and saves it from drowning before walking away leaving the two free dinners to go about eating grass. I'm not going to say anything about this, I will leave that up to you... 

The second reel features a woman throwing a cat out of her car, into a flooded curb side, where a box with the words 'KITTENS' is situated, full of giant baby cats. The next scene is of a truck driver with the caption, "If it hadn't been for this truck driver, the cats would have died!" Having seen more than enough, I clicked on the comments and was blown away by the number of people who thought the reel was real. Despite comments from sane people pointing out that all the cats were fucking gigantic, or that the 'mother cat' wasn't wet when it walked out of the deep water, or why the person filming it didn't save the cats, or any logical comment that essentially debunked this 40 seconds of exploitative nonsense; people didn't want to know. They didn't care that it was clearly a fake AI generated story; in fact many didn't believe it was fake. None of these cretins seemed to realise the 'story' was told cinematically, from a 3rd person POV.

We are doomed. You realise this, don't you? For every one of you raging about the AI takeover, there are mentally challenged people out there cheering on six fingered truck drivers saving abnormally large kittens from fake floods.

It Never Ends

There's a buzz going around - allegedly - about the psychological horror film It Ends. TikTok has made it a big hit and frankly if this is what the youth of today think is a good movie, I'm giving up this reviewing lark and taking up something else to pass my time. This is about 87 minutes long, but it felt like it really was going to go on forever. Four friends take a (wrong) right turn onto a road that never ends, or at least that's how it seems and behind them are hundreds of people who want their car, maybe - presumably - to try and escape this highway in hell. 

I asked the wife what she thought and he answer was 'It's not a bad idea' and she's not wrong, but it needed something to happen, even if we weren't going to get an explanation as to why it all transpired and not just to these four people. It would have been good if there had been some suspense, some jeopardy, something other than crazy desperate people trying to steal their car. I dunno, some monsters maybe or a pitstop with a vending machine... I wasn't impressed and it's not worth anything more than a 3/10.

A World of Boredom

Carol is bored. With the hivemind of humanity having deserted her, the isolation is driving her crazy and it looks like she might be about to crack. You see, we were told in an earlier episode of Pluribus that the only way she could become like everyone else was through a long and complicated procedure, which she would have to agree to and the boredom of her existence might have driven her to this idea. Little does she know that Paraguay man is trying to get to her and he wants what she wanted - to save humanity; his problem is he's in trouble because he won't rely on the hivemind. So we're set up for a  (series) finale that will involve Manousos Oviedo trying to persuade Carol that her idea of restoring humanity is the best idea, or at least that's what I think is going to happen. 

In truth, this has been a great idea that has grown increasingly more boring as it has gone on. Yes, I get that this is the entire idea - Carol has to go through all the stages of grief and distrust before she is finally won over by the fact that she will have all of her late wife's memories even if she will no longer have free will. But it's needed something else to happen; something more than Manousos learning English and not communicating with the rest of the world. Let's hope the final part of this series offers us something other than the rather pedestrian offering this has, sadly, become...

What's Up Next?

Fallout is back next week, plus some season finales, some films we'll get around to watching and probably some other stuff. 

You know the drill.

My Cultural Life - Stranger Danger

What's Up?

The UK Far Right is one of the whingiest and most demanding minority demographics on social media just now. At the moment, they're very scared of or offended by road signs, certain fluids, vegan scones, and the ethnicity of their 'favourite' cartoon character. 

They say so. Regularly on certain Facebook pages and comments sections of publications. 

They get sweaty and phobic when small families use parks and beaches (or their own homes and gardens), and they faint/swoon/weep uncontrollably when confronted by harmless eccentric costumery, a flag of different colours, or an innocent face mask. They admit these things. Every day, like a badge of honour. What you moan about is for sissies, this is hardcore. 

They're anxious of and simultaneously offended by young people, kind people, vulnerable people, teachers, trans gender people, experts, doctors, travellers, and sun lotion. They tell us on a daily basis about all the none things that are a problem, but they never seem to moan about things that are worth moaning about. 

The problem is, they hate the poor. They hate the different. They hate logic and science. They hate non-whites. Just ask them, they quite open about it now. They claim it's the new normal. Racism is more socially acceptable than caring for people or being 'woke'. 

If you actually stop and think about what the UK Far Right dislikes, they moan a lot more than anyone else and none of the things they moan passionately about is the problem.

Will Buys A Vauxhall Vecna

I dunno. Maybe there's something wrong with me? My old nemesis The Guardian gave season five, part one of Stranger Things a four-star rating and said by the end of this section, we'd be standing on our chairs cheering. Really? Look, if you're going to watch this you've probably watched it already, therefore I have to ask how Will's inner gayness makes him Eleven mk2? How does that even work?

I'm not convinced the Duffer Brothers knew what they were going to do with this when they started it. The chances are that the very first series of Stranger Things might have had the opportunity to extend itself tagged on after the majority of it was in the can, or maybe Netflix thought they were onto a good thing and told the inexperienced filmmaking brothers to go for it. The thing is, I sat through this segment of the final season wondering what the fuck was going on. Kids living inside Henry's memories; giant walls made of putrefying flesh; trying to tie up pointless subplots from earlier seasons; the US army as bad guys I can get my head around, but all the misdirection and confusion, the melodramatic confrontations, the jarring supporting characters - it's just not very good. 

Just what is Wynona Ryder doing in this? She's been as ineffectual as the proverbial chocolate teapot. What has happened to Maya Hawke's Robin? She's suddenly become ebullient and excitable, two things she has never been before. And what about the acting abilities of the (former) kids? Oh and while we're on that subject, Priah Fergusan, who plays Lucas's 11-year-old loudmouthed sister is 19 fucking years old and she looks it. I literally could write a long list of things that are wrong with this overhyped disgrace of a series.

It hasn't been good since season two and even those first two seasons relied far too much on Steven Spielberg and Stephen King, with a smattering of John Carpenter and Joe Dante thrown in for good measure. There is nothing original in this and despite everything that has gone on so far, Vecna is even more powerful than he was, his backstory is still as shit as it was and it totally lost me inside a couple of minutes of the first episode of season five's first segment of episodes... I mean, it's even a long and drawn out way of trying to explain where exactly in the order of things you are. I'll be standing on my chair cheering on January 1st when I never have to think about this bloated abomination ever again...

Court Case Nut Case

Despite finding it a good, if dated, feature film, I don't really know why Primal Fear was called that, because it isn't really about fear and there was very little that's primal about it - as it wasn't the first or original. This Richard Gere movie is about a lawyer who craves to be centre of attention, so when a young man is literally caught red handed after the heinous murder of a Chicago Archbishop, it's the perfect job for him. What looks like a cut and dried case soon becomes one with twists, turns and a stink of corruption. Laura Linney plays Gere's ex who is given the case of prosecuting Edward Norton's meek and mild Aaron and what starts off as an easy case soon becomes a battle for her job. This is yet another Gregory Hoblit film, someone who, after cutting his teeth on shows like Hill Street Blues and NYPD Blue, became a high profile director in the late 90s and early 00s. It does feel of its time, but if you don't know the film (or the story its based on) then you will not see the end coming. 7/10

Derry Things

Of course, the irony hasn't escaped me. It was one of the direct inspirations for Stranger Things and now It - Welcome to Derry is being maligned by its similarity to the first season of Stranger Things (or something like that). Maybe it's because both shows have so much promise and continually fail to deliver? This week's sixth part (that means there are two to go) was a massive case of fuck all. Young love and drums. Look at my manky eye. A little more 'look how racist we can be.'

I have to rewatch the two It films because I want to understand how adults and Pennywise interact. If memory serves me, adults forget about the clown and the tragedies very quickly; they just become 'one of those Derry things' - That's how it worked in the book, I'm pretty sure of. I'm wondering if we're really going to have two more series set further back in the past and if we do are they going to be unrelated to the flashbacks in this season? But I'm also wondering how this big air force operation was never mentioned by anyone in the films? Let's not mention the glowing obsidian-like stone with magical anti-Pennywise properties either...

I'm more than aware that since the second episode, I have struggled to find anything good to say about this series, but this latest instalment is an insult to our collective intelligence. It's a 'we haven't really got a story to last eight parts so here's a proper filler episode before we get into the penultimate and final parts'. You know Pennywise has that trademark red balloon? I think this one has a leak in it and it's now really flabby.

Troll Too?

One of the surprise films of 2022 was Troll, a Norwegian Kaiju film with a tragic ending. Despite its now low rating on IMDB it was an entertaining and enjoyable monster romp with excellent special effects. Troll 2 also boast quite brilliant effects, it also isn't a bad film, despite its IMDB score. I think many of the Americans who review things on that website don't understand 'foreign' movies. Yes, this is a bit corny - but we're talking about trolls, FFS, 100 foot tall organically natural beings that turn into stone at the sight of sunlight and dislike Christians - I mean, they could almost be vampires.

This time around, a troll the Norway government has had on ice for 100 years wakes up and decides to take its revenge on man. Welcome back Ine Marie Wilmann as Nora Tidemann, the palaeontologist from the first film, who is also a bit of a troll whisperer. She knows of the existence of another troll, who she calls 'Beautiful' and thinks she can get troll B to convince troll A to stop destroying things and eating people. The script telegraphs itself around an awful lot, so there are no surprises and there weren't enough scenes with trolls in them or enough action - for a film with the biggest ever budget in Norway they could have spread it around a bit more. It's 90+ minutes of silly fun with lots of film references, but it also feels like a generic Kaiju movie, if such a thing exists. 6/10 

Island Dreams

Almost all of the penultimate episode of Down Cemetery Road was set on the fictitious Scottish island where ex-soldiers went to be experimented on. People died, there was an element of a cliffhanger ending and the show's main villain continued to be villainous, while back in Whitehall, the civil servant who put the entire story into motion has realised the dopey Defence Secretary, the one he's dismissed out of hand in his British sitcom manner, has the make of him. This is utter shit and if there ever was a second season I'd rather saw my own penis off with someone else's hacksaw and then feed it to my eyes... 

DIY Laughs

Last year there was this mildly amusing TV show on Discovery called James May and the Dull Men's Club, this was essentially about James May doing stuff that the actual Dull Men's Club would get behind. It co-starred this acquaintance of May's called Seb Riley, who was really fucking creepy, posh and is probably the reason why it has been replaced with James May's Shed Load of Ideas, which has essentially the same show and team minus creepy Seb.

It was very funny in places and considerably more entertaining than its previous incarnation. We did learn something though, James is almost certainly a 'Jim' to his friends, as one of the producer's referred to him as Jim during a skit about turning a shopping trolley into a hybrid bike/trolley thing. There's no Seb, so this is ace, viewers...

Not ShIT

I persuaded the wife to watch It, despite both of us having the feeling we'd not enjoy it. It's been eight years since we saw it and much water has gone under the bridge and much of it felt like a new film. Andy Muschietti takes a few, well deserved, liberties with Stephen King's original story (that's enough mention of that) and breezes over parts of the book that just were either wrong or weren't needed to tell this tale. It does feel like a disturbing film at times; it plays on kids' fears which makes it quite creepy and it does actually lay some groundwork for the TV series, albeit unintentionally (I suspect). Oddly enough, it would have worked as a standalone film had it flopped; a bit of judicious editing at the end and it would have been final. I found I enjoyed it considerably more than I expected. It isn't a bad film at all. 7/10

Extinction Agenda

Meanwhile, in Pluribus: Carol discovers something quite horrendous and decides to travel to Las Vegas to speak with one of the other 'normal' humans about it and discovers a few things that upset her slightly. She might be the most miserable person left on the planet but she's had reasons for this, many of which she hasn't really bothered to share, and now she's beginning to suffer. The revelatory reason for the horrendous discovery and the fact the other normal humans have all been discussing things Carol has been investigating doesn't help, neither does a personalised message explaining the situation and delivered by John Cena.

Meanwhile in Paraguay, the only other human more suspicious of what's going on, other than Carol, finally realises that Carol might be just like him, so he decides to travel from Paraguay to Albuquerque. This might be the subplot we've been waiting for, because however brilliant this series has been it really is starting to feel like it hasn't actually got a reason for existing. Carol discovers that even the infected have to start realising that a cure is the only way to save a rapidly deteriorating situation, but will they realise it?

Beatling About

As we approach the end of The Beatles Anthology, we're also fast approaching the last two albums and the beginning of the end for possibly the greatest band that ever existed. It does feel as though the death of Brian Epstein was the catalyst for the things which led to the band splitting up, but they also produced some of their most innovative stuff, almost as if to prove a point. It didn't matter though because the UK press - especially - had decided the Fab Four had been Fab for too long and suddenly everything they did went under a microscope and very little was praised. It's also a period where the then three remaining Beatles had differing memories of what was happening.

What Weather's Up Next?

More discussions in the media about the wet weather. This week has seen the media fixated with: slagging Labour off, the World Cup, ignoring Gaza now despite continued Israeli violence, the Eurovision song contest and the wet weather. It shows you how the TV world has changed that neither Strictly or I'm A Celebrity have been featured on the news when they would normally dictate it, especially over the last 14 years or so.

Here's the thing - In March 2012, I was working at a school, we'd had one of the driest winters ever and March was exceptionally mild in Northampton. It was memorable because the extreme day/night cold broke one of our bathroom windows. We had weeks of cold but dry throughout the winter from November of 2011 and then the high pressure shifted in the March allowing a warmer airflow, but we still had longer nights than days and the nights were cold and still.

I was on my way home for lunch when I heard on the radio that a drought order was being enforced from the 25th or something. I said to myself at the time, 'here comes the rain.' 2012, apart from the first week of the Olympics and a few weeks in September was fucking awful. Will we ever forget the Queen standing on a boat in the Thames with her ancient husband getting soaked in 8 degrees in the middle of June? 2012 was shit. I had potatoes go rotten in the ground. The point is the moment the D word is mentioned, the weather gods, rub their hands together, laugh and turn on the wet stuff. 

As a rather nice summer came to an abrupt end in September, we were being told how bad it was as far as water levels were and how bad it's going to get and it's done nothing but dump rain on us, steadily, since then. Like some repetitive joke from the moment the D word was uttered on the BBC. Do you know what? Come April, May, June or July, we'll have had a period of dry, sunny and warm/hot weather that makes our landscape look like it's in the middle of a long hot D word. Because that is what happens with weather. It's not new, it's just a little more extreme.

What's Up Next?

Stuff. Dunno what. A couple of things pencilled in. If there's new stuff coming out, I don't know about it, but that might be because I never really watch 'the right kind of TV'. 

Some conclusions - huzzah - and some closing in on their own ones. As always, you get most of what I see.