My Cultural Life - Short & Stinky

What's Up?

Welcome to the shortest My Cultural Life ever. It's been a week where TV took a back seat. Except, it didn't. There's stuff I don't review - the staples of our week's viewing; stuff that I do not consider writing about. There might not be much of it, but if I was to include writing about the news, Pointless, the occasional Tipping Point or stuff like Landward and Scotland's Home of the Year then I'd get bored writing this thing, so who knows what you'd think?

However, something on the news caught my attention and it's put something of a bug up my arse. How come corporate crime is more important than just crime in general? Let me explain; one of the things people have been moaning about over the last decade is the police's inability to solve crimes, or even be available to pretend to solve crimes. How often have you or someone else been given a 'crime number' and pretty much been told "this won't be solved, contact your insurers"?

It's frustrating, especially when we see masses of police officers arresting old people who oppose the genocide of Palestinians, but not one when we need one, it starts to feel like a bad joke. So imagine my surprise when I found out this week that the police are clamping down on Firestick users and suppliers. Apparently large amounts of resources have been allocated so that police can a) track down and prosecute people supplying Firesticks and b) will then target people who bought them and are getting their streaming platforms for free.

Many of you might feel this is a good use of police resources and I'm not about to argue with you about that. What I will say is I think the UK police focusing on stopping people from getting US subscription channels for free is like the police giving a pensioner a parking ticket while a bunch of schoolchildren are murdered in front of him. It proves that we are totally in a world where individuals mean far less than organisations. I don't see the police hunting down BBC licence fee dodgers, so why should they be doing this at the behest of the likes of Amazon, Netflix and Disney? 

I don't have to worry about this because Firesticks are slightly pointless for me, for reasons we don't need to go into, but while I don't believe in victimless crimes, I do think that if you're getting something from Amazon for free then fucking go for it because they have more money than God and pay very little in taxes...

Spider-Crap

I remember reviewing The Amazing Spider-Man when it came out in 2012, rebooting Sony's Spidey franchise. I also remember disliking it immensely and oddly enough, watching it again, years later, I still don't like it. Everything from the lame story, to the trying to make it more of a mystery and the awful special effects, the ones which make the Lizard seem really substandard and Spidey's aerobic antics look more like a 2012 computer game than believing a man came swing on webs. I vaguely recall preferring the sequel to the reboot (which we will rediscover soon enough), but this is a slight story that retells 'emo' Peter Parker's origin and conveniently wedges Gwen Stacy in as the new love interest. One of the major problems is that both Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone look like high school happened over a decade ago for them both and Rhys Ifans isn't a good villain. This is the worst Spider-Man film. 5/10

Spider-Crap Too

No, this is the worst Spider-Man film. Everything that was bad about the first Andrew Garfield Spidey movie was amplified in the second one. This had awful villains, a continuation of the Parker parents subplot, that really felt like more was made of it than anyone thought possible, and more wisecracking from emo-Spidey, that works in the comics, but falls quite flat on screen. Jamie Foxx's Electro is woeful - a mentally unstable black man working for a corporation that treats him like shit, and a very deranged and confusing Dane DeHaan as Harry Osborne, this time reborn as some foppish wanker who would never have been friends with someone like Peter Parker and yet is somehow, despite not having seen each other in years. Fucking awful superhero movie. 3/10

Practically Bollocks

Sometimes, I have to ask myself why I subject myself to certain things. In this case watching Practical Magic for what I'm informed was for the second time. Apparently I'd watched it about 28 years ago and as I don't remember, I wondered if I hated it as much then as I do now? In 1998, Sandra Bullock was top billing next to Nicole Kidman - fancy that. Stockard Channing (who hadn't yet become First Lady) and Dianne Wiest, play the two aunts, who also happen to be witches, in a story about cursed love, unintentional magical deaths, unsettled spirits and bigotry. It's essentially a romcom that isn't very funny, not very romantic and isn't spooky. There's going to be a sequel later on this year, I'm taking bets as to whether I watch it or not. 3/10

The Hate Boys

Billy Butcher leads The Boys into the heart of Fort Harmony, where the original superheroes were created and also where there might be some of the original batch of V floating about. They are soon followed by Homelander and Soldier Boy and all of them are walking into a trap. This, peculiarly, was almost like a standalone episode and it benefited from it. The place they're searching is haunted by one of the original heroes and he feeds off of the hatred that people feel. There is also another perfect chance to kill Homelander off, but yet again, he walks away to proclaim himself God. Annie visits her father and lots of home truth are said. Almost a reasonable episode. 

Hell's Kitchen

The aftermath of last week's surprise ending spills out into the streets as Wilson Fisk casts caution to the wind and decides to shut the city down and hound out the vigilantes and their supporters. As we fast approach the finale, this week's Daredevil: Born Again has some shocks - such as an appearance from Jessica Jones and Karen and Matt falling out over how this all has to end. There was a lot going on and yet it still felt like a slow dance until Daredevil and the Kingpin come face-to-face again. With two episodes to go, everybody is in a shit situation and it looks like no one is going to win.

Political Bollocks

Robert De Nero, Dustin Hoffman and Anne Heche are the main actors in the 1997 political satire Wag the Dog. A film I thought I'd seen before, but am now convinced I haven't. This I find illogical, given who's in it and what it's about, yet after watching it I find myself strangely unimpressed. It had funny moments and was absurd yet totally believable, but... Anyhow, when the incumbent POTUS is implicated in an under age sex scandal, it's up to De Nero to come up with a smokescreen story to knock the allegations out of the mainstream press. The USA gets involved in a war with Albania and Hollywood producer Hoffman is the man to 'produce' this 'war' and sell it to the public. Maybe it was the fact it could be true that helps the film lose it's impact or maybe the current POTUS makes satires look old and dated, either way I can only give it a 6/10 and that's at a push.

What's Up Next?

Double For All Mankind and Your Friends & Neighbours, because this week is a quiz week. Plus we seep closer to a conclusion in The Boys and there's the penultimate episode of Daredevil: Born Again - which I think is going to have a surprise ending. 

Hopefully, my choices in films will be better.

As usual...