My Cultural Life - Where No Blog Has Gone Before

What's Up?

Every week, we're drip fed stories about how we should fear China. How the Yellow Peril is a danger to everyone and we need to be wary of them. I was wondering if this is because they are still regarded as a communist country and as we all know, anything left of centre in politics is very bad...

The thing is if you look at the shitty things the world's largest countries have done over, say, the last 10 years, you'd be hard pressed to rank anything China has done in a top 20 of shitty things big countries have done. There's rumblings about civil rights (which is hilarious given many of our right wing overlords want to strip us of them) and the fact they want Taipei - but unlike Russia and the USA haven't really done anything about it. In fact, with their push for green energy and massive advances in technology (which is bad when China does it, but not if the USA does), you could argue that China is the planet's friend.

The USA on the other hand is fast reversing into the past; abolishing green and clean energy targets and pandering to fossil fuel companies, while threatening Denmark and overthrowing the sovereign nation of Venezuela. In fact, Trump's USA is now far more scary than anyone else on the planet. The world's richest and most powerful nation are now flaunting their position and challenging anyone who doubts it.

The USA is so nasty, they've taken to sanctioning individuals they disagree with. Take the ICC (International Criminal Court); its judges and prosecutors are all subject to USA sanctions. They cannot use Google services, are banned from Amazon, cannot hold credit cards, because the USA threatens any non-American bank with their own sanctions if they give these people any form of credit. If there is a service or a requirement these people need, the USA has covered all bases. Any American company giving these people any service face jail or their own sanctions; any non-American company giving these people any service face threats, sanctions and are banned from trading with American companies and if American companies do business with these foreign companies, they will face their own sanctions or jail.

The thing is it isn't just individuals connected to the ICC. It now stretches to family of ICC members. A Canadian judge, who has effectively had her life put on hold is now telling the press that her daughter, unrelated to the ICC and in a profession that has no links to the ICC, is also now being sanctioned, because she is related to someone the USA classes as a international criminal. The daughter has had her right to enter the USA refused and her ability to get credit or buy things from US companies is now restricted. This is all because the ICC found Israel guilty of war crimes and there's an international arrest warrant out on Adolf Netanyahu.

We need to start challenging this narrative that the USA is our friend and China is our enemy, because the USA is clearly a rogue nation, threatening and bullying its way across the world stage and everyone is too scared to stand up to them. Maybe it's not prudent to stand up to them, but maybe it's time to tell the USA that there's no special relationship, we're not friends or allies and they should back the fuck away from the rest of the world and its business...

Wanker Supreme

If this is the kind of thing that is one of the favourites to win an Oscar this year then my taste in movies is obviously going down the wrong path. Marty Supreme is loud, brash, obnoxious and Timothée Chalamet, who is up for an Oscar, all on his own, is possibly one of the least likeable leading men of all time. This is an over-long and horrible movie about a grifter whose opinion of himself is so high and so conceited, he doesn't mind who he shits on to get to the top and in this case the top equals the best table tennis player in the world (in the 1950s), except that's pretty much relegated to a minor subplot. It has a soundtrack of banging 1980s tunes and Gwyneth Paltrow is in it, looking her age and probably wondering who the twat opposite her is. This is not a good film; it looks okay, but if you don't give a shit about any of the characters then you're not going to enjoy it; are you? If this wins Oscars then there is no justice. 4/10 

A Blast From My Past

A couple of weekends ago, BBC2 had a Phil Collins and Genesis themed evening and one of the programmes was a TOTP2 featuring songs by Genesis and various solo members ranging from 1974 up to 1992. The penultimate song/video was from an empty Knebworth in June 1978 - a video of the band performing Many, Too Many to a crowd of 11 fans who found out about the soundcheck and the video shoot. Two of those people were me and my brother Steve and if you look at the picture, the two people standing to the left of the group of seven standing spectators are him and me. I had luxurious blonde hair and I had only been 16 for two months; I was wearing double denim and Steve had his work suit on. We even got to meet the band after the shoot and I asked them a question, which ended up not being the best question I could think of and everyone asked them for their autographs apart from Steve and I, because we didn't have any pens or paper. It was my 15 seconds of TV fame.

The A-Holes Are Back

I'm allowed to change my mind. There is nothing wrong with admitting you were wrong. If you didn't like something and then you did it's the sign of maturity and some other thing that my aged mind can't remember. The thing is The Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2 is a very good film, if a little overlong. That's not really an issue, but there was a lot of stuff that felt slightly superfluous, such as a lot of the drawn out humorous sections, which would have worked even if they'd been half the length. Obviously stuff changed between this and the third volume, such as the role of the Sovereign race and my rooted in Marvel comics mind has always had a small problem with this Guardians version and the role of Gamora, given that she was one of the main characters in Jim Starlin's Warlock series, which you can read here:  https://readcomiconline.li/Comic/Warlock-by-Jim-Starlin/TPB-Part-1?id=135922&readType=1 and you should if you want to see how the MCU bastardised Warlock, Gamora and Thanos. This comic series is anything but a Marvel series, despite it being an... er... Marvel comic...

Anyhow, Volume 2 is about Peter's father; increasing the size of the Guardians, family - whether it's by blood or by choice - and how it evolves from the first part and becomes an excellent standalone series of films. Again there's stuff that seems planned from the outset and this time its tinged with tragedy, but it really is an outstanding addition to the oeuvre that now rates much higher in my grand scheme of all things MCU. I'm not overly sure about the special effects, but I have to admit I really enjoyed watching it again and it's better than the first, but not as good as the third. 8/10

The Flip Side

Where to start? First off - I always said I'd never watch this again because the first time was so bad. 10 years down the line and I decided to question my better judgement and watch it again. It was a bad move... X-Men: Apocalypse is where the Fox franchise started to eat itself, with the reintroduction of existing characters from the first three films but now as kids, because of the events in the Days of Future Past film. It was also where the franchise completely lost it on a number of fronts. Whoever thought Oscar Isaacs had the gravitas to pull of being cast as one of the most powerful villains in X-Men comic history is probably the reason why this movie failed to have the impact that was hoped for. Isaacs plays En Sabah Nur - Apocalypse - a little too camp, a little too quietly and with absolutely no menace at all. He is shite as this supposed mega-powerful ancient mutant.

Then there's the issue I have with Sophie Turner's inability to act. She brings nothing to the role of Jean Grey apart from groans from the audience. She makes Isaacs's Apocalypse seem like Laurence Olivier. Her accent is bad, her contribution felt badly stage managed and she highlighted the big problem Marvel/Disney are going to have when they bring mutants and the X-Men into the MCU. How do you make the less cinematic characters 'sing'? Jean Grey might be one of the most powerful entities in the Marvel comics universe - at times - but when she isn't looking like a phoenix, she's mimicking Charles Xavier with hands on temples and pointing at things with a slightly askew hand. She is the epitome of not cinematically exciting - and she's not the only one. Mutants can be visually excellent, but equally, many of the originals, are anything but.

I don't know how they're going to iron out the problem that a lot of mutants are about as powerful as Daredevil and as visually stimulating as a blank slate. They could leave them out of the reboot all together, but that would mean doing what the Fox X-Men did and dispensing with 40+ years of continuity to have cool looking characters doing pointless shit because it looks good on screen, but relying on the ones who do shit with their minds to clean up the mess. X-Men: Apocalypse is a load of dog's vomit and even a cameo by Huge Ackman doesn't save it. Plus I know what's coming and the final film in this franchise is as good as having the runs for a week. 2/10

Blood and Brains

The penultimate episode of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms was the untold origin of Sir Dunc sandwiched between bookends of men beating each other senseless with the little bald kid screaming - in a bad actor kind of way - from the ramparts. I didn't care too much for the flashbacks, but I see why they were here. The battles were bloody, muddy and unrelenting and I wonder what the consequences will be given the shock death at the end. It was a mixture of WTF and why am I watching this bit when I want to watch the other bits. Next week will be interesting. 

The Dribbles

I remember thinking, first time around, that this film was tonally all over the place and that feeling hasn't changed with its second viewing. I didn't think this was as bad as I initially thought, but it does fall apart the moment the three heroes set foot on the Bollywood Waterworld planet. The Marvels is a low point in the MCU, with its 5.5 IMDB rating and its largely dreadful story about a Kree nutter out to destroy anything linking Carol Danvers while saving her home planet. The thing is I quite like Carol Danvers; she was the original Ms Marvel, went on to other things including becoming Binary - all characters that were other people in the MCU - and even ended up sharing a mind with the X-Men's Rogue. She was one of the first female Marvel heroes to get her own title, which lasted 23 issues, and I even quite like Brie Larson's version of her in the MCU, despite her being reviled and hated by many of the virginal fans of Marvel and Disney.

The Marvels is poor. It's badly made, it features two characters from MCU TV shows and the villain, who has about as much menace as a dog chew, is despatched far too easily. Plus there are glaring errors in this movie, including Iman Vellani's Ms Marvel using her powers despite not possessing her power band (I know people claim that she's a mutant and has the powers anyhow, but frankly that's a cop out - this film ignored a fundamental element of her story to allow her to save the day). This was an ill-judged decision, which is compounded by the use of a Bollywood number and the inclusion of far too much Goose the alien not-cat. Don't get me wrong, Goose is great, but Goose is a supporting character to be used sparingly, not as part of the entire plot. Yet, I don't think this is as bad as it's IMDB rating, but it still doesn't deserve more than a 6/10

The Crapt

1990s fantasy horror movies, eh? Most of them were an absolute load of shite and this was no exception. The Craft is about a coven of teenage witches at a Catholic school in LA who basically get their revenge on mean kids in their school, but it goes all wrong and nasty shit starts to happen. Fairuza Balk, Neve Campbell, Robin Tunney and Rachel True are the witches and misfits who pretty much deserve most of the shit thrown at them (well, maybe not Tunney, except for teaming up with the three bitches, um, I mean witches). That's not to say their victims don't deserve what they get either and that's the problem, no one is particularly likeable, you don't give a shit about any of them and it's so superficial and shallow it feels like a bad episode of some crappy TV shows about teenage witches without the comedy or the black cat. Why did we watch it? Fuck knows. 3/10

Stalking

Sometimes Shrinking feels like it should be called Stalking, because the three shrinks in it go way above and beyond the call of duty for their clients that you wonder how they still practice. It also throws up the question of why aren't any of their friends or clients able to make decisions on their own without first consulting the oracles of psychiatry. There is a great scene though where Paul - Harrison Ford - returns to work and is humming the theme tune to Indiana Jones. That was worth it alone. There is also another great cameo from Michael J Fox - this time as a real person rather than an hallucination and the opening sequence where Jimmy takes the cute nurse on a date is also extremely funny.

War Crimes

Apparently there was some artistic licence used in the movie Nuremberg. The character played by Rami Malik was inflated to seem like the psychiatrist he was playing had a larger part to play in the trial of Herman Goering and the Nuremberg trials, or at least that's the accusation levelled at it. Malik's character, Douglas Kelley, wrote a book about his experiences which carried a warning about underestimating what man is capable of doing, but it was felt to be unamerican and too understanding of some of the Nazis on trial. The film is pretty riveting stuff, with an excellent performance from Russell Crowe as Goering and also from Michael Shannon as the US prosecutor Robert Jackson who almost allowed the Nazis on trial to 'get away with it' because he didn't fully understand what he was dealing with. This might have had a few liberties taken with it, but it's also a very good film and should be watched for the middle section if nothing else. 8/10

If I Had Patience...

Everywhere I look there are great reviews of If I Had Legs I'd Kick You, most of them focusing on Rose Byrne's extraordinary performance. What none of these reviews tell you is it is almost impossible to watch. This is the story of a woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown; with a very ill child, an absent husband and a strange relationship with her therapist. The problem is it's interminable; like a breakdown it just never starts and never stops; it is impossible to escape it and equally really difficult to watch... Which is why just before the half way mark, I paused the film, looked at the wife and asked her if she wanted to continue watching a movie where we're both pretty convinced we'd get to the end and proclaim that's two hours of our life we're never getting back. We chose to switch off and never return to this again. Therefore it will remain unrated by me. I will say that if you're in a good mood then don't watch it and if you're unhappy and in a bad place, absolutely don't watch it. The main character's daughter is so annoying it will put you in a really dark place that no parent probably ever wants to visit. Avoid.

Over Budget

George Clarke's new-ish series Building Home is more like a cross between his renovation series and Kevin McCleod's Grand Designs. As always, we watch it to see the look of glee on George's face when he discovers the project is going over budget and how priapic he gets when other troubles beset the project. We've watched three episodes so far and I have to say that one episode was under budget, while the other two would have had Clarke dancing round the production office high fiving everyone he could high five with. Like virtually every show of its ilk, this is 50% bollocks, 25% recaps and 25% money shot. There's something a bit creepy and overly tactile about Clarke now and he seems to ogle the ladies far too much. I don't really enjoy his shows any longer, even Amazing Spaces feels like it's sold out to a production company that has forgotten what it was originally about.

Astounding Story

We ended the week watching a nine-year-old documentary. The Farthest: Voyager's Interstellar Journey is the story of Voyager 1 and Voyager 2, two man-made spacecraft that are both now journeying through interstellar space (although V1 hadn't made it when this was originally made). It was a totally compelling film without ever feeling like it was too much science. It was great seeing one of my childhood heroes on screen again - Carl Sagan - and the understandable science about this is utterly mind-blowing; it is staggering in its enormity and I imagine that many of the scientists involved in the making of this film are no longer walking this earth now. It was on BBC4 about two weeks ago, but remains on the iPlayer. You should watch it, it's phenomenal and entertaining and makes you realise just how insignificant we all are (plus it has the story of the Pale Blue Dot - arguably one of the most important photographs ever taken).

What's Up Next?

I almost don't care. There are conclusions; new beginnings, old things and other stuff that will happen. I bet you can't wait?