Black Panther (2018)

“It's hard for a good man to be king."

This is a hard film to review objectively. It's clearly a significant cultural artifact, far more so than a normal MCU film, and has connected with the African diaspora worldwide for its Afro-Futurism, a big part of a cultural movement that includes works such as Janelle Monae's ArchAndroid, and which constitutes a positive look at the potential of African achievement in spite of a background of colonialism and the Atlantic slave trade.

The central conceit of the character of T'Challa has been, of course, for 52 years, that he's the king of a fictional African nation- Wakanda- that secretly defies all African stereotypes to be the most technologically and socially advanced nation on Earth. It's an African paradise, yet the cause of a central debate between the traditional view of the late T'Chaka- Wakanda is for the Wakandans, not for all Africa or the world, and it must be protected; and the view-,expounded with militancy by Erik Killmonger, that Wakanda must share its bounty with the world. This is an interesting central dilemma, but one fundamentally divorced from real world concerns. And, while it's good to see a positive portrayal of Africa and Africans, it's also a little disturbing to see Wakanda presented as a mish-mash of various West African, East African and South African cultures, not all of them Bantu, as though they were the same- and they are not; sub-Saharan Africa is huge and impossibly diverse. I'm not sure that the message that African cultures are pretty much the same is fundamentally a positive one, whatever the merits of the film's upbeat message. Is it only white and Asian people who are allowed to have distinctly different ethnic identities?

Still, the film works as entertainment in the traditional Marvel mould, and Chadwick Boseman's lack of charisma is well compensated for by an awesome and largely female cast. Ryan Coogler has made a film that looks superb in every way, with nothing in the visuals that I can fault. But, much though I enjoyed the film, with its black female Q, its James Bond pastiche antics and the big final battle with war rhinos(!), the film is merely good, not great.

Fantastic Stan Lee cameo, mind, though obviously bittersweet...

Scrooge (1951)

"Humbug!"

Mrs Llamastrangler suggested that, as Gremlins counts as a Christmas film only on a technicality, I ought to do one (interpret that how you will) before the Chrimbo Limbo concludes. I think she had Jack Frost in mind, but heigh-ho...

Anyway, this is bloody good. Alastair Sim proves that actors associated with comedy can be truly arresting at straight drama- although his comic side is of course very much on display at the end..The entire cast is magnificent, though.

While bits are expanded from Dickens’ original novella, chiefly concerning how Scrooge got his wealth, this is a faithful adaptation, on the whole. The film deserves top marks, in particular, for taking care to include Dickens’ social commentary; the unreformed Scrooge refuses to forgive a debt, potentially forcing his unfortunate debtor to spend Christmas in a debtor’s prison, and announces that prisons and the Poor Law, cruel though they are, are a suitable response to poverty. Also it’s clear, in what we see of Scrooge’s past, that his hardness is a response to a perceived hardening of the world from the ore-factory age, when money wasn’t everything, to now (1843-ish?) where money is progress and traditional considerations for the less fortunate have fallen by the wayside. It’s very much about the problems of industrialisation, but it has much to say to That her’s children in this new age of austerity. And it’s heartening to see Christmas being set against all this, rather than as another commercial pressure.

It’s all full of Dickensisms, of course, from those inimitable character names to the poor working class family that inexplicably speaks RP, but that’s all part of the fun. This is the finest adaptation of A Christmas Carol that I’ve seen, very much including those with Muppets in...!

Sherlock Holmes and the Deadly Necklace (1962)

"I have only one ambition at the moment: to see you hanged."

Christopher Lee playing Sherlock Holmes; sounds fantastic, doesn't it? Thorley Walters as Watson? Terence Fisher directing? Why, that sounds amazing, right?  What could possibly go wrong?

What we have here is essentially The Valley of Fear with a bit of Moriarty stuff and a heist tacked on the end. It's an odd approach but it could have worked. Thing is, though, this was filmed in West Berlin with a German cast, and dubbed back into English so we don't even get Lee's voice. We see him playing Holmes... but we don't really experience it. It's so frustrating.

Worse, all the dubbing is awful, with ridiculous trans-Atlantic accents; the first thing we hear is a bunch of very American-sounding kids. And then there's the setting, and especially the cars- this seems to be set in about 1914 when the novel was written, whereas in fact Holmes was pretty much active (barring the very specific circumstances of The Lion's Mane and His Last Bow) from the early 1880s until about 1903. The cars feel wrong and jarring.

Lee's physical performance is ok, from what I can see; Walters is, I'm afraid, the bumbling type of Watson. The plot is engaging enough, but the whole thing is shot very flat and often feels am-dram with much of the acting. But the dubbing, in the end, makes it impossible to take the film seriously. You thought Dick Van Dyke's cockney accent was bad? Wait until you see Holmes in disguise here...

A real shame.

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)

"I've got a bad feeling about..."

"Quiet!"

"What...?"

I really am a long way behind on the Star Wars films considering I claim to be a fan. This is actually the most recent I’ve seen and I only saw it last night; I really need to get a move on, especially as this is really quite superb.

Part of what makes this film so good is a combination of a fast, action-filled plot that never feels slow; this is a fast-paced action film in the Star Wars universe. But there’s something else, too; all the “main” Star Wars films up to this point, good and bad, and including the prequels that I will blog one day, may have been full of droids and starships but we’re essentially stories told within the fairytale mode. This is not.

Hence we have characters, with arcs, but they are secondary to the plot, and there’s a constant mood of grittiness and a focus on just enough downbeat realism. This is the Star Wars universe, and the theft of the Death Star plans is pretty damn pivotal, but these people lead hard lives based in the reality of resistance to tyranny, not myth. So Jyn- a very different part for Felicity Jones after playing Jane Hawking in The Theory of Everything- has had a harsh life, and her character arc is to reconcile with her father, who had once seemed a traitor, and lose her apolitical cynicism to risk everything in getting the Death Star plans to the Rebel Alliance. Wonderfully, the blatant weakness in the Death Star which allows one hit to destroy it is a deliberate piece of sabotage by her father Galen. But there’s never much hope; idealistic, good people can be heroes without being fairy tale heroes.

Take Cassian; a hero of the rebellion, certainly, but one characterised by the kinds of difficult moral choices that always define resistance against tyranny in a world that is real, not fairytale. When we first meet him he shouts a man in cold blood for the greater good. His mission to kill Galen is secret and cynical, although in the end he doesn’t shoot. And his big speech, where he agrees to join Jyn in her mission, is about how he and his mates have done terrible things, but all in the name of the empire.

We also have K-2SO, the Marvin the Paranoid Android of Star Wars, voices admirably by Alan Tudyk; the blind warrior monk Chirrut, a standout performance by Arizona Ahmed as Bodhi, and a few other heroes who undertake a deeply entertaining, exciting and doomed mission. This isn’t a fairytale and no one is getting out alive. A brilliant film.

Except... well, the CGI resurrection of the late Peter Cushing as Grand Moff Tarkin just looks weird, and is a troubling can of worms to open. And the CGI restoration of Carrie Fisher just looks wrong. But these troubling aspects can’t take away from the fact that Nuneaton’s own Gareth Edwards has given us something very special. The codder done good.

The Gifted- Season 1, Episode 4: eXit strategy

"Call me Polaris. You're sending me to Hell; I think it's the least you can do."

So this introductory arc is over as this episode sees the springing and ultimate freedom of both Reed and Lorna as they are transferred to what we’re told is a helkush ultra-secure prison for mutants; I’m sure we will be seeing this place later but for now the good guys have won. For now. Now they can spend some time interacting with each other, the Mutant Underground and the Struckers together.

We get an interesting and charged chat between aliens and Reds while they’re in separate cells, reminding us that he has done reprehensible things and ruined a lot of lives, coming to an epiphany only when his own children were affected. This reminds us to pause before considering him a hero since his conversion. He has a lot to atone for; families torn apart and children separated from their parents forever, for no reason. His actions are as evil as those of Trump.

Last episode was about moral compromises; this time Marcos gets his turn as he finds out what is needed for the rescue by visiting his ex, Carmen, who proves to be the head of a drugs smuggling gang- and agrees to do morally dodgy stuff for her. Yet another character, in a world full of terrible moral dilemmas as happens under tyranny, dips his hands in the blood. Caitlin also learns that she has to let her children take some risks, and to be fair she is pretty badass herself.

We also have troubling scenes of Clarice dealing with the emotional after effects of her newly planted false intimate memories with John, but most of the episode consists of the rescue, with plenty of rather gripping action- not least due to the presence, on the Sentinel side, of Pulse, whose powers can among other things disrupt mutant powers. It’s an exciting and entertaining episode, but the end of an arc. So what next...?

The Gifted- Season 1, Episode 3: eXodus

“And you can shove that deal up your ass!”

I know it’s been a while since I blogged the first two episodes of this season; suffice to say this is me finishing it, and see the Marvel index for the previous two blog posts.

Anyway, where were we? We have the Struckers, a family thrown out of complacency by the revelation that their children are mutants in an America that’s very Days of Future Past, except with much cheaper Sentinels and obvious contemporary resonances in Trump’s land of the not-so-free- much of the harshness of the US law and justice system is from real life, and it’s not hard to see the allegories  in a real world America where the tiny children of othered immigrants are inhumanly ripped from their parents. The mutant underground is even likened to the Underground Railroad of slavery days by dialogue.

There are Marvel resonances- I know Polaris and Thunderbird from the comics but none of the other mutants, and the Strucker name is of course quite resonant, significantly or not- but for now we have the mutant underground, desperate and reactive, and the X-Men seem to exist but are nowhere to be seen. Other mutants include Eclipse, Dreamer and the powerful butcrecently awakened Clarice, who can make portals. Interestingly, we are told that mutant abilities first assert themselves during adolescence when the person is highly upset, and it takes a while to control them.

This episode is about the trade-offs and compromises of living under tyranny, resonant of a Milan Kundera novel; Lorna refuses to compromise, not betraying her friends at the cost of harsher treatment for herself. Her bid to escape, using her powers to destroy the door in spite of the extreme pain, is tragic, especially as an early flashback shows her to be rather lovely. Reed at first agrees to betray his family but changes his mind when he sees the moral consequences. Caitlin learns a harsh lesson that she cannot use the law in her favour, as even her own brother refuses to give any real help in order to protect his own immediate family.

But Dreamer makes a big moral compromise, controlling Clarice’s mind by implanting a false memory so she can produce a portal and save the day, the only compromised decision all episode. I’m sure there will be consequences.

This is all good so far, if dark, although leavening all this darkness with the odd bit of humour would be good.

Legion: Chapter 8

"Are you threatening the entire human race? Do I have that right?"

This season finale feels different, perhaps; relatively functional by the standards of Legion and unfamiliarly neat in how it ties up everything it wishes to tie up in a satisfactory but unexpected manner. Oh, there’s some directorial weirdness, but the whole thing feels almost linear. Heaven forbid.

It’s interesting, then, that the first few minutes are given over to the disfigured baddie who appeared at the cliffhanger- Clark- and takes time to establish how his painful disfigurement has affected his life and relationships, all of which is far more interesting and important than the casual and predictable resolution of the cliffhanger. He isn’t a threat, or so least not now. But, as dialogue later establishes, he represents the institutions and governments of homo sapiens, a seriously long term threat if mutants don’t succeed in getting along with those who fear and probably want to exterminate them. But that’s for the long term.

The episode is mainly about expelling the Shadow King from David, and how this is only possible because of Syd’s love. It’s about reconciliation, such as between Kerry and Cary. And it’s about the possibility of healing old wounds- Oliver may not remember Melanie, but he’s happy to agree to a date.

David gets an interesting few lines to Syd; he’s self-conscious enough to accept the possibility that, although his powers may be real, he can’t be sure that he doesn’t have schizophrenia. And he’s so tired of talking to various shrinks that he’s absolutely sick and tired of talking about himself; he wants all this to not be about him.

The ending is neat and satisfying, except where it chooses not to be; David is free of the Shadow King but it has moved on to Oliver, and then there’s the sequence after the main credits. It’s been a very different but extraordinary series, one with understandably limited appeal but one to which I shall return for the next season, late as I am. First, though, there’s some other unfinished business...

Gremlins (1984)

“Now I have another reason to hate Christmas!"

I’m 41 and I’d never seen this film until now. Yes, I know. And, er, I still haven’t seen The Goonies, which Mrs Llamastrangler tightly rebuked me for last night. Sometimes I’m not a very good ‘80s kid.

At least I’ve seen it now, though, and obviously it’s awesome. The Mogwai and Gremins look ok and are delightfully animatronic and stop motion, the script is fun and the cast (made up almost entirely of character actors rather than stars) is rather good. I do rather wish Spielberg hadn’t used his name to promote films he didn’t direct, but this at least feels like his “brand”. It’s a fun little tale and passes quickly and enjoyably, although for me what really lingers in the mind is poor Kate’s horrible childhood Christmas tragedy. Because this films is a classic Christmas movie, just like Die Hard.

Mind you, this whole thing of “wise old stereotypical Chinaman in his little shop with his vague Eastern Wisdom” would probably raise more eyebrows today than it did in 1984. The whole casual attitude towards getting a pet for Christmas is also perhaps a little dodgy. Drink driving is treated as a little joke. And yes, things do get a bit silly towards the end, with the Gremins smoking and drinking and enjoying Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. But the film is fun enough and plays things real enough to get away with it.

What’s really weird, though, is this is 1985, my childhood, and that can be eerie st times. The kid Pete looks and dresses much like I did, and everything was “neat”- never cool. This film, then, is very, very neat.

Batman & Robin (1997)

"This is why Superman works alone!”

Oh dear. What an absolutely terrible film. Incoherent, full of meaningless bangs and explosions, and with ridiculous overacting from Schwarzenegger and Thurman in particular, and a bafflingly miscast George Clooney who plays Batman as a generic superhero of the sort you simply can’t imagine beating up criminals for information like he used to when he was Michael Keaton.

Indeed, Clooney seems to be channelling Adam West as a goody-goody Batman but with absolutely none of the camp humour that was the whole point. And, after largely ditching Tim Burton’s moody darkness reflective of the ‘80s comics, this film drops it entirely. We may have the same Alfred and the same Jim Gordon, but this is otherwise unrecognisable from those distant-seeming Tim Burton days.

The whole thing is just cartoonish and silly. Arnie hams it up as Mr Freeze (always a rubbish villain) from the start, and those constant terrible puns completely erase any possible pathos that could potentially be supplied by his motivation to cure his wife. But even worse is the appallingly silly performance from Thurman, an otherwise talented actress, who completely sends up the character of Poison Ivy, although of course the script does that anyway. Bane is wasted as a generic henchman and Jason Woodrow just gets to be a generic mad scientist to twirl his moustache for a bit and get killed. The whole movie is a tick box exercise of featuring various characters for the sake of it and just wasting them.

Perhaps the worst case of this is Barbara Gordon, although for some reason here she’s Alfred’s niece instead of Jim’s daughter- she unexpectedly turns up from England without telling anyone, for some reason wearing her school uniform, and claims to be English although Alicia Silverstone isn’t bothering with the accent. And then plot convenience let’s her discover the Batcave and a costume that Alfred made for her on the off-chance(!), and she duffs up Poison Ivy in spite of having no apparent combat experience or athletic prowess. This is all just very silly.

And I haven’t even mentioned THOSE nipples, and the scenes with Batman and Robin bidding in the millions for Poison Ivy. Can we just end the franchise now? Oh.

Legion: Chapter 7

"On the chest of a barmaid in Sale
Were tattooed all the prices of ale
And on her behind
For the sake of the blind
Was the same information in Braille"

This episode is, of course, hardly linear; there’s an extended silent movie sequence, complete with intertitors and to the sounds of Ravel, in which Lenny tries to kill our heroes; there’s a scene in which David is spoken to by his “rational mind” who is, in a fourth wall-breaking nor to Dan Stevens’ origins, British. Yes, incredibly, we get the exchange “What, you’re British” / “Well, as I said, I’m your rational mind”, and this in a TV programme made after June 2016 when we Brits lost any such claim.

Anyway, after a surreal start, the mental home illusion of last episode is shattered and everyone (although Ptonomy is oddly silent all episode) more or less understands the situation- they are in the astral plane because of the Shadow King (we hear the name from Cary, as well as the name Amal Farouk, but no context yet), suspended in time just before they’re about to be shot. There’s a lovely scene where Cary innocently tries to mansplain all this to Syd but she pre-emotes him, confirming she’s worked it all out because “I’ve been paying attention.”

We also have the still-quite-surreal Oliver finally interacting with everyone- including, tragically, Melanie, whom he no longer recognises. Her resultant distress is not overdone, and all the more effective for it.

David, with help from his rational self, works out that his birth father must have been a powerful psychic mutant who defeated the Shadow King and quickly had David adopted to protect him, but the weakened Shadow King still managed to infect him as a parasite, blighting his whole life and drawing strength from David’s power; at last we begin to get a straightforward explanation as to what has been going on, albeit with gloriously creative visuals based on animated blackboard stick figures.

David ultimately saves the day in the real world, diverting the bullets and seemingly with everyone (including Amy and Oliver) sage- although didn’t Lenny/the Shadow King briefly do something to Oliver?

All this is shattered, though, as the real world baddies arrive and prepare to take David alive- and everyone else dead. And we end with an echo of last episode, with the Shadow King inside that coffin. But there’s a gap...

Legion: Chapter 6

“Deja vu, but not?"

Legion is already pretty damn experimental and avant-garde for prime time network telly, but this is a specifically experimental and avant-grade episode. Gulp.

The whole thing is set during a frozen moment in time as the bullet hurtles towards David and co. David, Sid, both Loudermilks and Ptonomy are in a mental home run by Lenny; it’s uncertain whether this is a shared dream reality or just David’s, but the set-up gives a good opportunity to give a bit of character background for everyone before the focus turns to Syd and David. Incidentally, Ptonomy mentions that his mother died while loading the dishwasher; this is the first inkling that the series is set in a post-60s time frame.

At first it’s all played straight, albeit with Lenny coming across like a bit of a Freudian quack, until suddenly the fourth wall smashes into a million pieces as she does a music video dance routine to Nina Simone.

But there are little kinks in this reality- Sid starts to remember things and notice a kind of Schrodinger’s door that is sometimes there, sometimes not. And so things finally collapse until the point where Lenny (briefly appearing as that demonic figure that I’m sure is the Shadow King) Who is sonehow orchestrating all this for the purpose of using David’s power in some way.

We end with David, in a box, falling in the dark, and two episodes to go. This is powerful, non-linear, weird, wonderful telly.

Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors (1965)

“An unfortunate misnomer for I am the mildest of men...”

This is the first of the Amicus portmanteau horror films from Freddie Francis and Milton Subotsky, and the pieces are already in place- a number of vignettes of varying quality, An overarching framework that looks gradually more sinister as the film progresses, a troupe of British character a tor’s including some quirky choices, and of course the ever-splendid Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee.

The overarching framework is that Dr “Schrek” (Nosferatu reference alert) uses Tarot cards to predict the bleak future of each of the very male occupants of a railway compartments. Yes, compartments and, indeed, a steam train; 1965 feels so very long ago sometimes. It’s an odd structure plot-wise, as each character is told their ghastly tale of what awaits them only for none of that to happen and all of them to die in a train crash, but it’s a suitably atmospheric framework and Cushing is superb.

The first vignette, a Gothic take of a werewolf in the Hebrides, is probably the weakest. But the second, where a vine takes over the world(!) features a rare acting role by none other than future Radio 1 DJ Alan Freeman. Not ‘alf, pop pickers. And we get the interesting sight of him interacting with Bernard “M” Lee as a vine threatens to kill them all.

The third tale, with Roy Castle as a jazz trumpeter, is much stronger, as musician Biff steals the time of a Voodoo god that he finds in the Caribbean, with ominous consequences. But the absolute highlight is Lee’s snobbish and conceited art critic who gets his revenge from being humiliated by an artist he dislikes by running him over so his right hand is lost, only to be pursued by the disembodied stop motion hand until, poetically, he loses his hand in a car crash. I suspect an influence on Evil Dead 2 here, but Lee’s very real performance hopes the main thing work. The silly last vignette, with a young Donald Sutherland and  a very Bram Stoker take on vampires and an interesting effect of a bar, can’t follow this but nicely rounds things off.

The vignettes are variable but the Roy Castle and Christopher Lee segments are particularly superb, and the whole thing is atmospheric, fun and entertaining in equal measure in spite of the plot holes and the variable quality of the vignettes. Worth a look.

Doctor Who: The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos

“Don’t aliens ever bother with doors?”

Sigh. That was a season finale?

It’s the moment of truth; the season has fully unfolded in all of its dubious glory and, well, aside from It Takes You Away it’s been good but hasn’t wowed me. And this episode- penned, fittingly, by Chris Chibnall himself- is the perfect illustration of why this season is often good but hardly ever more than that, and I expect more from Doctor Who.

This episode gets the usual things right, of course. Jodie Whittaker is a deeply promising Doctor in the vein of a Davison or a Tennant, in spite of being worryingly underwritten as a character who just does Doctorish things but isn’t given an inner life. Graham, Ryan and Yas are a strong TARDIS team, making a crew of four work as it did under Hartnell, and the characters are all strong- but let’s see a bit more development of Yas in particular. The show also looks awesome. It’s a good set-up.

But the problem is that Chibnall just isn’t that good a writer, either of episodes or of season arcs. I mean, this is the season finale and, yes, it pays off the death of Grace and features the return of Tim Shaw. Even the Sniperbits are back. But, well, really? That, and Graham’s predictable revenge sub-plot, is enough meat for a finale? This is thin stuff.

Then there’s the basic plot. I’ll forgive the steal from The Pirate Planet as the mood is so different, but the whole set up- the idea of the Ux as a species of two, the engineering, the faith; it all feels sonehow like the early New Adventures. Like all the Chibnall-penned stories set in space it’s grim, joyless apart from the TARDIS crew’s banter. In fact, that’s a big part of the problem; under Chibnall, Doctor Who is hard science fiction instead of the whimsical science fantasy we’vecall Known and loved for the best part of 55 years. Perhaps that’s why lastcweek’s talking frog had me grinning; Paul Cornell used to talk about frocks vs guns. Well, give me frogs over po-faced witless plodding plotting any time.

I never thought I’d be the “x must go” type of fan, but this season has me concerned about the programme in a way I haven’t ever been before, and I’ve been a card-carrying fan since Part Two of Remembrance of the Daleks. I’ll never stop enjoying Who, even if not as much as I’d like, and I’ll never stop watching it, blogging it or being as much a part of fandom as work, fatherhood and caring for my disabled wife allow. But I will say one thing.

Chibnall must go.

Fifty Shades Freed (2018)

"So why do you defy me?"

"Because I can!"

 This is only the second film I've seen that was made in 2018. Right now it seems very possible that it may ultimately end up being the worst. It's that bad. In fact, Mrs Llamastrangler has just described it to me as being akin to "a disappointing fart. I concur.

So what is so deeply disappointing about this, the third in a series of films that, it's now clear, are all pants? Well, many of the same things. Let’s face the horrors, shall we?

Christian and Ana get married in a posh ceremony and then they do that bizarre and rather rude thing where they leave the ceremony that everyone had made such an effort to attend to drive off, cold sober, to a honeymoon by montage in Paris and the French Riviera. We get a few scenes reminding us what a control freak Christian is, presumably meant at least partly to humanise him, but in fact just making him look like a controlling twat. Some arson at home by nasty old Jack draws them both home early where married life begins properly.

Christian has an extraordinarily childish reaction to the inevitable conversation about kids but, well, why on Earth did they not have this conversation before trying the knot like all sensible people do? And, frankly, I don’t care about Christian’s poorly defined mother issues- he’s a billionaire. Why is parenthood an issue where money isn’t? Then there’s that ridiculous throwing of his toys out of the pram because Ana prefers to use her maiden name professionally, as that’s how she’s already known, which seems rather sensible. He seems to think he’s entitled to expect his wife to take his surname, which is frankly a load of misogynist bollocks. Yes, Mrs Llamastrangler ended up taking my surname, but it was entirely her decision and I made it very clear that I didn’t feel entitled to any such thing and, frankly, in her position wouldn’t have done the same. For a bloke to simply expect it to happen is a bit of a warning sign.

But then he does the other thing that emotionally abusive partners do, and buys her stuff, namely a new home to her tastes. It’s good to see Ana asserting herself against the flirtatious architect, but she’s very much living a life circumscribed by Christian, with him even controlling what she hears about the danger to her from Jack. There are disturbing hints of gaslighting here, and when she deviates from his plan to guarantee her safety by- heaven forbid- having a few drinks with her best friend. This leads to a bit of a kerfuffle with Jack and, more disturbingly, with Christian having another massive sulk because Ana has the temerity to show a little bit of independence. And so what could have been a rather erotic little kinky scene of him teasing and denying her just turns outvtonbevhom throwing a strop like a complete and utter child. But then none of the sexy scenes are sexy, and none of the kink is allowed to be just kink.

Incidentally, one of the many things that ruins this awful film is the constant use of unlistenable, badly produced, horrible chart pop which, with all its autotuned awfulness,  actively subtracts atmosphere and sexiness from every scene. The only decent bit of music in the whole film is Grey playing Macca’s “Maybe I’m Amazed”, which isn’t saying much.

Anyway, Christian’s reaction when Ana tells him she’s pregnant is utterly pathetic, and the perfect reason to leave him. He reacts like a proper child, sulks and confides in Mrs Robinson; no wonder Ana is disgusted. Yes, it’s wrong to spring a pregnancy on a man without his consent, but accidents are accidents, and any woman has an absolute choice on whether to keep her baby; making her get rid if it is just as immoral as being one of those anti-abortion zealots. And none of this matters much, anyway, if money isn’t an issue- why not just have the child? Bringing up kids is fun.

So we end up with a bit of climatic action between Ana and nasty old Hack, and she ends up still trapped in what she sees as a healthy relationship with Christian, and thinking the fact he’s into BDSM (she isn’t, not really, so it’s disturbing that he’s foisting it on her, and controlling how she perceives it) means he can get away with controlling her without her informed consent. She ends the trilogy still trapped in a relationship with this controlling man-child, and that is truly tragic. Poor Ana. But far more tragic is the thought that this film may give many people the idea that BDSM makes this kind of behaviour ok.

Legion: Chapter 5

“You know, they say the brain is the largest erogenous zone.”

More glorious conceptual weirdness this week, but as ever you have to pay attention. And as ever the cinematography is glorious, visually signalling this as art telly if the script wasn’t already making that clear. It’s weird, it’s non-linear, it’s magnificent.

So last episode Cary and Kerry weren’t killed; she was just badly hurt and it affected him. They’re fine. So is David, seemingly much more confident and together after his sojourn in the astral plane, even using his new abilities to find a way for he and Syd to touch each other and make love in some genuinely lovely, if surreal, scenes in a white room that must surely be meant to evoke the video for John Lennon’s Imagine. And yet, as the couple make love, the camera pans to some strawberries being crawled over by wood lice, a canker in paradise..

There’s some discussion of Oliver; he’s Melanie’s husband, trapped in the astral plane for 21 years because, essentially, he became addicted to being a god in his own world- both a mind-blowing concept and a cautionary tale for David, as well as an explanation for Melanie’s possible partial ulterior motive for helping him.

Then things start to get scary. A hugely powerful and scary David goes on an unstoppable mission to rescue Amy, killing all his enemies without a passing thought. And this leads Cary to theorise; is he genuinely schizophrenic as well as being a mutant of the mind? And is there some kind of malign parasitic presence within his conscious, editing his memories to hide itself? This is at one a brilliant concept and, well, this series clearly isn’t much interested in Marvel continuity and characters but... it’s the Shadow King, innit?

Then we get weirdness, disturbing things with Lennie/Benny, and David not responding well to being told by Amy that he’s adopted. Stuff happens in the astral plane, and then suddenly they’re all in a mental institution. This is absolutely brilliant.

Doctor Who: It Takes You Away

“I see the sheep have moved on. Probably off plotting.”

You know how I’ve spend the whole of the season so far whingeing that yes, many episodes are good, but none of them have wowed me? Well, with one episode to go, this season has finally gone and bloody done it. Ed Himes, you can write for Doctor Who again. This is a splendid fifty minutes of television. It still doesn’t mask some underlying issues with Chibnall’s reign, though; still no arc beyond very basic character stuff, leading to a sense of drift. And, while Jodie Whittaker is excellent as ever, it’s becoming increasingly obvious that her Doctor isn’t getting any character development.

Still, bravo. Big sci-fi ideas, for a start; a sentient universe that just wants to be friends but isn’t very good for the health of reality, and the subject of a bedtime story from one of the Doctor’s seven grandmothers to boot, plus of course the whole scene with the frog. It’s also about something; Hanne’s dad is a parallel bad dad to Ryan’s father at first glance, although he’s addled by grief and sees the error of his ways. And Graham’s own grief gets played with horribly by the “resurrection” of Grace. Yet the whole thing brings Graham and Ryan together sufficiently for Ryan to call him “Grandad”, an earned and powerful moment.

All this, and the lines about the sheep. And the flesh moths. And Kevin Eldon A’s a nasty, duplicitous demon. And the whole concept of “antizones”. And so much subtext I’m sure I’ve not even noticed half of it.  I don’t know if we’ll ever see another Neil Gaiman episode, but this is pretty damn close, and just as good.

And yet... it’s a one off episode, full of one off brilliant and a Doctor Who does Doctorish things but isn’t written with any inferiority. Sometimes it’s the exceptional episodes what make you worry about where things are headed.

Beavis and Butt-Head Do America (1996)

 "Are you threatening me? My bumhole will not wait!"

 I last saw this in, well, the '90s. On a VHS videotape that was my prized possession. It’s brilliant, of course, and a style of humour (“Heh. You said ‘anus’!” that has lasted.

I suspect Mike Judge is no metalhead, and this fan of heavy guitar riffs is a bit suspicious that people like my young ‘90s self should be portrayed as such thickos. Thing is, though, it’s funny.

It’s weird seeing Beavis and Butt-Head in a whole movie, doing no less than a road trip with Bruce Willis and Demi Moore, instead of just watching the telly as is their wont. But it works, thanks to good old puerile humour done with an evil wit, and Robert Stack is superb.

It’s also very, very ‘90s, though, from the perspective of 2018- teenage Chelsea Clinton’s braces, teenagers actually watching the telly, a very ‘90s kind of youth culture-focused nostalgia for the ‘60s and ‘70s leading to that glorious Robert Crumb psychedelic bit in the New Mexico desert. One could almost say that bit was genuinely cinematic.

Well done, Mike Judge and co; cavity searches all round. The campaign for a sequel with middle-aged Beavis and Butt-Head starts here!

Doctor Who: The Witchfinders

“If I was still a bloke, I could get on with the job and not have to waste time defending myself!"

A very good episode but, par for the course this season, lacking in the stuff of greatness. Still very good, but no more. And it’s becoming worryingly clear that the series doesn’t seem to aspire to that under Chibnall. But is this just my expectations, having come in recent years to appreciate the depths of writing of an RTD and a Moffat, while Chibnall is focused on creating a family show that appeals to kids, and successfully at that? Am I, a 41 year old fan, the target audience, as I was for Moffat? Should I be?

The episode is genuinely good and the new writer- Joy Wilkinson- is one I’d be happy to see again. The history is a little vague (characters called “Willa” and “Becca”?) and suggestive of a younger audience than we were used to in the recent past, but the plot is solid, even if the resolution is rushed; Pendle Hill being an ancient prison for some rather well-realised alien villains is a fun concept. And the of course there’s Alan Cumming’s superb performance as King James VI and I, a portrayal that rings very true for this highly intelligent, intellectually lazy, psychologically damaged king who took refuge in absolutism and boys. Oh, and in not suffering a witch to live. Especially that.

Jimmy One is clearly well-researched; indeed, we get a whole scene with Ryan (naturally, Jimmy takes a shine to him) comparing their hard childhoods which shows off the research splendidly. And I also love the big chat he gets with the Doctor just before she faces the ducking stool.

It’s perfect that a story about witch hunts- the ultimate in misogyny- should be the first to really explore just how different things are for the Doctor when stripped of her male privilege. She is patronised, disbelieved, her very title mocked, with Graham having to stand in as figurehead. Yes, on the whole it’s rather good. But yet again it stops short of wowing me and the season so far is no better on the whole than “good enough”. I like the new Doctor, the new format, the new characters. I approve of the reorientation towards a family audience. And this tabloid nonsense about “PC plots” is just silly. But can we have some brilliance in the writing please? So far, every season since the show returns, I’ve liked some series more than others, and not all episodes have been good. But you could always be confident that an episode of sheer brilliance would turn up soon-ish. Is that still the case?

Batman Forever (1995)

“It's the car, right? Chicks love it."

 Incredibly, I've never seen this until now, after 23 years.After the two gritty Tim Burton films, which I'd seen at the cinema and enjoyed, I wasn't impressed by the prospect of a film that dialled down the atmosphere and just tried to tell an exciting story.

So did I enjoy it? Well, yes, it's a fairly good Hollywood blockbuster action film, and it's even pretty good with the Batman mythos- we get a pretty good Robin origin with the Flying Graysons and the character is made not to look silly, which is no small achievement, even if the fact that the Flying Graysons all wear costumes while performing that Dick's eventual Robin costume will pretty much mirror means that it's pretty obvious who Robin really is, so Bruce's secret is shot too. But then, in this film at least, it pretty much is anyway.

I also like both Tommy Lee Jones' performance as Two-Face and the fact they only did his origin in flashback. But the Riddler, well, Jim Carrey is really annoying and the riddles are a bit perfunctory, the character seemingly being really about those silly brainwave machine thingies; this doesn't really feel like the Riddler.

Also, Joel Schumacher's directorial style is so very generic Hollywood compared to Tim Burton's unique and very fitting style, and even Gotham itself suddenly looks just like an ersatz New York, complete with Statue of Liberty, rather than the Gothic, Expressionist nightmare we've become used to. This is connected to the first two films only by Pat Hingle, Michael Gough, and the design of all of Batman's stuff. And Brude actually gets a girlfriend and still has her when the film ends- what's going on?

Plus Val Kilmer is, if not awful, not great either, and not a patch on Michael Keaton. This just isn't the same introverted, brooding character. But then this isn't really part of the same series of films in any meaningful sense. It's pure Hollywood spectacle, done well but with no real depth or meaning.

Pet Semetary (1989)

"Sometimes dead is better."

Another Stephen King film, then, and one in which he gets a cameo as a vicar... and I still haven’t read more than one obscure novella by him. I must remedy that.

This film is rather good, but a curious beast; there are no stars, unless you count Herman Munster and Lt Tasha Yar. And it doesn’t really feel like a horror film until the very end where a zombie toddler is running riot, being far more of a drama about what it’s like to lose a child- an unthinkable thing for any parent- much though the whole thing is tinged with a palpable sense of the macabre which feels, well, Stephen King.

The conceit is (cliche alert) that behind the burial ground for pets of the misspelled title there lies that old horror standby, the old Indian cemetery. This allows Dead things to be brought back to life, and be brought back to life wrong so, after an initial and fairly harmless first attempt with a cute little cat which proceeds to get all creepy and animatronic (is that a 1989 thing?) things start to get serious as the fanily’s little boy gets run over by a lorry. And presumably, this being Stephen King, this all happens in the state of Maine.

It’s a nice little understated film that chooses, I think rightly, to emphasise the mood of the macabre over shocks. One think is truly shocking, though- Jud drinks that undrinksble horse piss Budweiser and forces poor Louis to drink the foul liquid. Have neither of them heard of actual beer? And why does Louis pronounce his name “Louis” but pronounce it “Lewis”? It’s most odd.

But all is forgiven as the end credits roll and we hear the splendid sound of the Ramones, everybody’s favourite all-dead New York proto-punk band. “Pet Semetary” is no “Judy Is a Punk” or “53rd and 3rd” but it does the business.

Legion: Chapter 4

"I was a woman who couldn't be touched, in love with a man who wasn't there."

Legion just gets weirder and weirder; among other things, this episode features a girl living in a bloke’s head as his imaginary friend and getting out in to the world, and when she dies, he does.

It’s all very fairytale, which brings me to the opening. We meet the mysterious and stentorian Oliver, player by that bloke from Flight of the Conchords and a splendidly surreal individual with his discordant jazz and pronouncements on literary theory. He lives, it seems, on the astral plane, where David’s consciousness has become stuck from excessive dreaming. That’s the sort of thing that happens on this show.

Through Ptonomy we, and Syd, begin to realise that David’s memories may be partly false and are covering something up, and indeed that he may not be as nice as he seems. Certainly it’s evident, after the two of them make enquiries, that all old memories featuring Lenny reflect the reality of a big man called Benny, a bad influence.

The whole thing is as well directed as ever, which is good, because this sort of telly relies on that. The “real” world still has a stylish ambiguity between ‘60s and modern styles. And motifs recur- Syd keeps seeing the Hitler-like Angry Boy from the storybook while out and about.

I hold my hands up; I have no idea what’s going on at this point. But I’m enjoying the ride.

Legion: Chapter 3

“Could you maybe not break everything this time?”

Before I get to the final series of Angel it’s about time I finished something I started a while ago- this first season of Legion, that very strange and independent riff on a Marvel character. It’s an odd beast, non-linear and full of symbols which we can interpret as we wish; this week’s opening dream sequence is based around a fairy tale.

The whole thing is dreamlike, though. Perhaps it’s because this episode the A plot- David’s sister Amy having been kidnapped by the nasty shrink baddies- is put to one side for an episode of “memory work” with Melanie and Ptonomy, hinting at blocked memories and a nasty monster lurking within David’s subconscious. A lot of the time I have no idea what’s going on, although it always entertains. You really have to pay attention; this is brave, difficult telly.

Amy gets blatantly told that her brother is not schizophrenic, just a powerful magic being, as he is slowly learning himself. He’s also developing his sweet little relationship with the literally untouchable Syd. But something is wrong with his memories, and as we can see something is very wrong indeed with that storybook, and we get a very odd cliffhanger ending.

This is weird. At the moment I simply couldn’t tell you whether it works or not.

Doctor Who: Kerblam!

"Have you smelt her?"

"Oddly enough, I haven't..."

Terrible title and, I was confidently expecting from the preview, terrible episode. Turns out I was wrong; along with last week's episode this heralds what's looking like a definite upswing in quality with a thoughtful bit of what science fiction was made to do- satirical extrapolation of current trends to the nth degree.

What we have here is a bit of a cross between Doctor Who Discovers the Effect of Automation on the Workforce and Doctor Who Discovers the Appalling Working Conditions in Amazon Warehouses, a very topical bit of telly that will be very relevant to many viewers. The satire is simultaneously made blatant- the ancient junk robot seems awfully like Amazon, and the degree of employee monitoring that goes on is truly terrifying, although not as terrifying as automation itself. Just how many of us, even in professional jobs, will not have our livelihoods threatened by automation in say, twenty years' time? How will we pay our mortgages? Will it be a dystopia or was the great John Maynard Keynes right to expect increased leisure time? Somehow I expect neither will happen, but those of us with mortgages and dependents can be forgiven for being nervous.

Political though he episode is, mind- the working conditions on show are genuinely horrifying- the baddies are not the bosses but a protester- yet the system exploits him as surely as he exploits the system; capitalism is and is not the villain here, which is nicely nuanced.

The robots are splendidly creepy, too, and the reminiscence to the robots in The Greatest Show in the Galaxy parallels the similar opening scene in the TARDIS - is the deliberate implication that the delivery robot in both stories is from Kerblam? On the subject of continuity I liked the fez from when the Doctor was Matt Smith, and the shoutout to The Unicorn and the Wasp. And we can't not mention The Robots of Death either- we even get "robophobia" referred to. But this is, at its heart, a welcome piece of contemporary sci-fi which addresses major issues of the world we live in and gets away with doing so at prime time by having robots in it. Brilliant.

Damien: Omen II (1978)

"Damien Thorn is the Antichrist!"

It's been quite a while since I saw The Omen, but it lingers in the mind somewhat, mainly because of the set piece deaths. This sequel follows a similar pattern; Damien is now thirteen, adopted by his aunt and uncle, and forced to attend one of those awful military schools to which the more abusive type of American parents send their children. There are the same types of people protecting him, the same types of people discovering what he is and trying to stop him, and of course the same types of grisly deaths for the latter.

Except... while still a pretty good film, it doesn't compare remotely to its predecessor. Partly this is because, although some of the set piece deaths are rather good, they don't begin to approach the spectacle of the first film. And the cast, while solid character actors all, lacks the charismatic star presence of a Gregory Peck.

That isn't to say that the story doesn't grab the attention, that the central conceit doesn't work as well as before or, indeed, that there's much wrong with the script; I suspect that a better director could have improved the gory set pieces which, while a decent enough spectacle, don't anchor this film as they did its predecessor. But it certainly has its moment- I enjoyed the reporter's death my raven and lorry, and the film has a bi of fun with the fact we all know where it's going. It's a solid but fairly by-the-numbers early example of the type of Holywood horror sequel that would become so fashionable over the following decade.

Doomsday (2008)

“In the land of the infected, the immune man is king."

 This s easily the greatest Scottish post-apocalyptic Mad Max movie with mediaeval knights and steam locomotives ever made. Bar none.

Yes, the start is perhaps a bit ropey, very exposition-heavy and quite blatantly nothing but exposition, exposition, exposition as it gives us a backstory of a Scotland (well, Britain north of a reconstituted Hadrian's Wall- that would be just south of Wallsend's high street, a bizarre way to think of Mrs Llamastrangler's home town) quarantined because of a nasty virus, causing the British government to abandon and brutalise people in ways that probably mean Nicola Sturgeon died crying "I told you so" although, to be fair, the PM's Glaswegian functionary is just as evil to Londoners later.

But then it gets good. Really good, proper B movie fun. Proper Mad Max aesthetics and car chases, cannibalism, Molotov cocktails, glorious ultraviolence, Siouxie and the Banshees, loads of gore, not a lot of sentimentality in spite of  Major Eden's potentially tear-jerking backstory, and Malcolm McDowell holding forth speechifying splendidly in a mediaeval castle, presiding over a medieval society. In the twenty-first century. This is top B-movie stuff. And very well-directed too. There are Roman echoes, with Hadrian's Wall and some of the Mad Max lot evoking painted Picts.

The cast is superb, from Sean Pertwee's horrible end to David O'Hara's cynical baddie to the ever- sublime Malcolm McDowell, but the badass Rhona Mitra holds it all together. A film most definitely worth watching.

Dark Season: Episodes 5 and 6

Episode Five

"A ventilation shaft. Marvellous. I’m a cliche.”

The middle episode, and we discover that Pendragon is digging not for Celtic archaeology but for an old MOD building beneath the school, and the Behemoth is an AI war machine that she once created. In spite of her cod-mysticism she’s actually a scientist, but so mad and melodramatic that only Jacqueline Pearce could possibly have played her: a genius scientist sacked for being a Nazi and prone to lots and lots of speechifying.

Elsewhere, Miss Maitland fails as an English teacher as she “corrects” Reet’s grammar to end a sentence with “and I”, failing to understand the difference between the nominative and the accusative.  Don’t you just hate that? But at least she begins to overcome her scepticism and get stuck in. Thomas, in spite of some more terrible acting from Ben Chandler, has some amusing scenes with Pendragon as it turns out his Aryan looks come mostly from hair dye.

It’s a rather cool ending as the Behemoth awakes and it’s revealed that the “chosen one” is in fact needed to sit in the chair and be subsumed into the machine- a sacrifice which now suddenly falls to a bizarrely ecstatic Pendragon. This is brilliantly mad chikdren’s telly.

Oh, look. There’s Mr Eldritch.


Episode Six

“There will be now new age. Only a dark age.”

A rather excellent finale as Marcie exploits the differences between the Nazis and the chaos-loving Eldritch, Lawful Evil vs Chaotic Evil. There’s a debate between Marcie and Eldritch to persuade the fully sentient Behemoth, and arguably a debate about whether it’s Miss Maitland with her bulldozer or Marcie with her words who saves the day.

All this stuff about the end of a century being an important time (it’s only 1991, kids) feels quaint from the vantage point of today, but it works. And Grant Parsons’ Eldritch is a splendidly melodramatic villain. And best of all is the scene where the increasingly cool Miss Maitland gives the Nazis a right good bollocking.

It’s a nice upbeat ending, Marcie is blatantly the Doctor as always, and this is a brilliant bit of telly. But I suppose it had to end; there are only so many sci-fi thrrats that could threaten a school. But that young RTD, the Why Don’t You bloke who wrote this- he’s going places, I tell you.

Dark Season: Episodes 3 and 4

Episode Three

"If I was here to give answers, I'd open an answer shop!"

A satisfying conclusion to the first three part story here, with a nice little twist as it’s revealed by the old man that “Professor Becjinski is my wife!” using Mr Eldritch’s casually misogynistic assumption that the man must be the professor as a trick. Of course, this means that Marcie and her mates don’t actually save the day, but it’s a nice way to end. I also like the way Mr Becjinsky tries to persuade Dr Osley to turn on Eldritch, giving Osley his big speech about the world deserving what it’s going to get.

Also interesting is Eldritch’s motive; although he intends to ensure all computers are networked and under his control, he doesn’t want control; no, he wants to create chaos.

Marcie gets some heroic stuff to do, and there’s a countdown (why do baddies never just press a button that does things instantly?). And, of course, Eldritch vanishes. It’s a big, satisfying ending, although Marcie, Reet and Thomas are perhaps a little sidelined. In fact, things would have pretty much unfolded much the same without them.


Episode Four

“Liberty Hall!”

Don’t imagine I didn’t spit the blatant reference to The Three Doctors up there. Anyway, Marcie, Reet and Thomas are back, with hesitant help from Miss Maitland, as Jacqueline Pearce turns up and steals every scene she’s in with aplomb. She was a force of nature and she will be missed.

Miss Pendragon is an eccentric baddie with a mysterious agenda and, quite rightly, the manners of Servalan, who is conducting a sham archaeological dig in a quest to find the “Behemoth” of Celtic legend. As Thomas notes, her commitment to diversity is less than ideal as all of her underlines have a suspiciously Aryan look. Indeed, she seems to have hired the handsome but dim Luke just to stand around being Aryan and unblemished, and suddenly abandons him when he gets slightly hurt. Nazi much?

Marnie spends the episode being splendidly moody mixed with bursts of Doctorish activity. We’ve established the format in the first three parter; now we can just get on with the adventure, and it appears the Behemoth may now be emerging...

Doctor Who: Demons of the Punjab

”You know there are aliens, right? In Punjab, during Partition? And you're worried about me being gobby?"

At last, an episode that's more than quite good and actually both moving and interesting. And it's written by Vinay Patel, who is 1) the first non-white person to write for Doctor Who, which is quite awful at this late date; 2) new to the series; and 3) not Chris Chibnall, thank the gods- indeed, this is the frst episode of the season where Chibnall doesn't have a writing credit.. This script is assured, thoughtful and moving.

Moreover, after Rosa, it's tempting to muse on the possible return of the near-pure historical. In that story the only science fiction element was timey-wimey stuff; here the aliens merely observe, and mourn. They seem a little metatextual, although subtly done, and if anything they represent us as viewers. They are not the titular demons of the Punjab; that would be humanity.

Partition happened only in 1947. Back in the monochrome era this was both far too recent and too close to the bone for a British programme, it being no longer ago to them than the New Labour years are to us, and there being no serious view of Partition, and its millions of deaths, that doesn't largely blame the British. This is skirted over here, but it is there.

The plot s simple, really; Yas wants to find out her grandmother's mysterious past so persuades the Doctor to take them back in time to the Punjab during what turns out to be Partition, and there ensues a tale of genocide and star cross'd lovers as she sees her Muslim grandfather marry Prem, a Hindu man who is not her grandfather. If you're used to stories about time travel- and many viewers may not be- it's straightforward stuff, but full of potential for drama and pathos as we see the inevitable tragic events play out.

It's worth emphasising again how much I like this TARDIS crew. They have fun, they have heart, they have a real developing bond; I love that brief scene between Yas and Graham about what she must be going through, yes, but also how great their lives are. And Jodie Whittaker is brilliant again. Chibnall has got so much right about the shape of the show. But there's definitely a pattern developing where the ones he doesn't write are the better ones.

The Princess Bride (1987)

"Have you ever heard of Plato, Aristotle, Socrates?"

"Yes."

"Morons."

It's a genuine mystery: This Is Spinal Tap is one of the funniest films ever. How, then, can pretty much the same team- Rob Reiner directs, Christopher Guest has a major role- produce something so unfunny as this.

I can see what it’s trying to do- play with the silliness of the tropes and cliches. Hence we have exaggerated tropes such as a princess with absurd faith that her ridiculously heroic man will save her, and a Spanish swordsman who lives to avenge his father’s death. But none of this is addressed with any real wit, and it’s obly the names (Prince Humperdinck) and cameos from the likes of Peter Cook and Mel Smith that tell us this is intended to be a comedy.

All this is narrated by Columbo to his annoying, sport-obsessed grandson for no apparent reason, in a framing sequence that has no obvious reason to be there. It describes a weird mediaeval word where fictional countries mix with real ones and people seem to have heard of Australia. And where there are, er, “rodents of unusual size” which look awfully like a man in a suit. It’s clearly meant to be funny. It isn’t. An odd misfire.

I very strongly suspect, mind, that the “battle of wits” scene strongly influenced the first episode of Sherlock.

The Incredible Hulk (2008)

"You wouldn't like me when I'm hungry..."

Well, that was a bit disappointing. It wasn't awful, not quite; I'm glad they didn't just do the bloody origin. But, I mean, come on- Edward Norton has no bloody charisma. And, in spite of lots of CGI action, the direction just isn't that exciting.

I mean, it's nice to hear the telly theme tune as incidental music. It's nice to see a CGI Abomination. It's nice to see a sort of origin for Samuel Sterns becoming the Leader but with literally no climax; the actual cinematic equivalent of bad sex.

I suppose the treatment of the origin during the opening titles is neat and, as with Iron Man, it doesn't bother with any of that secret identity nonsense; everyone knows Bruce is the Hulk, so has to wander the western hemisphere like it's the '70s. Plus Liv Tyler, Tim Roth and William Hurt are all ok.

But, CGI spectacle aside, this film is boring. A good Hulk film needs a charismatic lead actor, and Edward Norton is no Mark Ruffalo. And no, a cameo from Lou Ferrigno doesn't make it right.

So the second ever Marvel film is a proper misstep. It's not surprising how little influence this film has had on what came after. Eminently skippable.

Dark Season: Episodes One and Two

Episode One

“Normal is for the comatose!”

If you think Jodie Whittaker is the first female Doctor Who then you are quite, quite wrong. Let’s look at the evidence: RTD writes; 25 minute episodes; Marcie acts and speaks exactly like the Doctor; the directorial style and incidental music is exactly like Cartmel-era Who which is, after all, only a couple of years ago. The baddie even begins by saying “Nothing in the world can stop me now!”. I rest my case.

This is, in fact, a brilliant bit of telly that only the very 1991 fashions can’t spoil. The script is superb; Victoria Lambert is superb, Sylvester McCoy’s Doctor as a thirteen year old girl. The paddle is a bit of genius. It’s genuinely bizarre that she doesn’t seem to have acted in anything else. Then there’s a young Kate Wibslet (the less said about Ben Chandler the better) and such British telly stalwarts as Brigit Forsyth and the great Cyril Shaps.

Like Cartmel era Doctor Who, the programme hides its lack of budget with lots of mood, atmosphere, and having this and intrigue be a substitute for expensive spectacle, and does it well. It’s also full of strong characters, an intriguing mystery, and an intriguing men-in-black villain in the splendid Mr Eldritch. But the clothes, oh, the clothes...



Episode Two

“If I can teach you two anything it’s this; shut up and do as I say. Out!”

The plot thickens and so does the characterisation; I love Marcie’s fun little relationship with the exasperated and harassed Miss Maitland, and how only she realises that anything weird happened. We also begin to see how the Professor is at the heart of all this, leading to a splendid cliffhanger. And, this being the early ‘90s, we have the obligatory cyberspace bit, with even a kind of proto-internet. In 1991.

It’s weird to think I was about the same age as the kids in this at the time, but in some ways it doesn’t feel so very long ago. It’s intetesting to be reminded of a time where not all schools gave lip service to any of this silly uniform nonsense, for example, whatever the resulting fashion disasters. Thing is, though, what does Mr Eldritch want? So far he just walks around looking cool while talking like a super villain in a vague sort of way, more of a trope than a character as such. Not that I have any problem with this.

Angel: Home

”We do have a dungeon. I can show you around later if...”

So Lilah gives Angel that thingummy wotsit to take to Buffy in Sunnydale for Spike’s big heroic sacrifice? I wish I hadn’t lost that list of the right order to watch episodes of both series a while ago. Still, no great harm done, and this is an intriguing and unusual finale which points forwards to the next season of what is now the only Buffyverse show.

It’s a lighthearted episode, a good thing after all the recent angst,  showing how all of Angel’s gang are slowly corrupted by Wolfram & Hart and agree to take over the LA branch of the evil law firm for their far from nefarious purposes but, it’s heavily implied, losing a part of their souls in the process.

It’s fun to see a temporarily resurrected Lilah tempting them all with her customary wit; she seems somewhat cheerful for someone who has just been in Hell and will be back there soon. It’s also unclear what’s so outrageous about her contractual obligations to her employer extending beyond death, with the alternative again being Hell. But it’s fun seeing her sparring yet again with Angel and, indeed, with Wesley.

They all get their individual temptations- Fred is to be head of science, Lorne of entertainment, Wesley of arcane lore or something and Gunn... well, we know not what, but he takes a trip to the big white room where a panther has replaced the little girl. He’s very conscious about what his supposed talent may be that Wolfram & Hart so require; we shall no doubt find out at the start of next season. Angel, of course, is CEO, with Sun-proof executive windows and twelve cars. Not bad.

The season has largely been about annoying little Connor, though, so it’s fitting that he should get a fitting send-off as Angel foils his psychopathic son in a nasty little hostage situation and Wolfram & Hart arrange for Connor to get an entirely different life.

It’s been a wonderfully changeable season, easily as good as the last, ending up with yet another major change. Is this going to continue...?

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)

"Nobody tosses a dwarf!"

This is only my second viewing of this or, indeed, any of this magnificent trilogy. And, yes, with an appropriate nod to YouTube's How It should Have Ended (watch it for LOTR), it's magnificent. The three sodding hours actually passed very pleasantly.

The Lord of the Rings is an odd book, or trilogy, however you’re counting. I’m glad I read it at twelve, appendixes and all; I enjoyed it very much, but I fear the charms of its 1,200 plus pages would have likely eluded me if I’d been any older. Written by an Old English academic- I once cited an academic work of his while writing an essay on Beowulf- and intended to create the Germanic and Finnish myths he so loves, it isn’t a style of writing we’re used to in modern times. These days we have a literary genre called “fantasy”; that wasn’t so clearly the case at the time, and indeed The Hobbit was written for children. One odd thing about Lord of the Rings is the huge change from children’s pride in the shire to epic narrative for the rest of the novel but it is, of course, a work of genius.

So how does Peter Jackson film such a book? Well, brilliantly. His native New Zealand is a magnificent setting, and his cast is superb- Ian McKellen May stand out, but Christopher Lee is utter perfection as Saruman. Yet just as important is the magnificent direction and the scene that, for me, stands out is Christopher Lee’s performance in the scene where we discover that Saruman has betrayed Gandalf- the scene is a perfect synthesis of actor and camera as the extraordinary subtleties of Lee’s performance are echoes perfectly by the movements of the camera.

Wisely, Jackson does a faithful adaptation without cutting corners and, indeed, takes things from the appendixes to flesh out the narrative- particularly in an expanded role for Saruman which helps with the plot at this early stage but also, with Sauron himself being just an eye, giving a face to what the Fellowship is fighting. Seeing the Shire on screen makes is stand out from the high fantasy surrounding it: it’s odd to see a British work of high fantasy that features American crops such as tobacco and potatoes- or perhaps the “weed” is something else? It would make a lot of sense.

There’s one thing I don’t get, though. What’s so special about Sean Bean’s “One does not just walk into Mordor?” It’s a fairly nondescript line so why all them memes?

Doctor Who: The Tsuranga Conundrum

“It just ate my sonic!”

Well, I admit I’ve been waiting all season so far to say this, but, well, that was very Chibnall, wasn’t it? It wasn’t awful, but it wasn’t great either. It just... was.

The regular cast are as great as ever, of course. And the Pting is a great monster, very Pokemon, both a cool concept and (this may be controversial...) looks awesome. The whole thing looks classy and well made, although it’s rather obviously the cheap studio episode full of inexpensive but adequate sets.

There are some nice sci-fi concepts too- l loved the concept of junk galaxies and, of course, the pregnant bloke, obviously there so Ryan can slowly begin to think about fatherhood and begin to understand his father, just a teenager when he was born. Yet again the four-strong TARDIS crew works well, and they’ve established a strong bond. I’m glad that dialogue early on established they’ve travelled a fair bit since last episode. And yet... it all feels very much by the numbers.

The real saving grace, though, is Jodie, elevating a series of mediocre to quite good scripts by her sheer charisma and Doctorishness. I am already seriously impressed by her, but I’m beginning to become really quite concerned by the humdrum nature of the scripts. Yes, Chibnall make good showrunner decisions, but his scripts are as formulaic and unispiring as ever they were. That was fine when he contributed just the odd script but not when he writes the bulk of the season, as he has so far. He can do character, he can do the big picture, but he’s lacking in depth, coolness and fun. And, while his decisions to go for the family audience again are quite correct and clearly successful, I think in the medium term that the standard of scripts needs to aspire to be more than just good enough. This is Doctor Who.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Chosen

“Oh, you know me. Not much on the damselling."

So, this is it, after seven extraordinary and eventful years... and, with this being American network television, we still get the usual 42 minutes. Still, Joss himself is back to write and direct, so we know this will be good. and it bloody well is.

144 episodes ago we began our voyeuristic adventures of the Chosen One, a valley girl, a character always quick with a quip, but fundamentally (as we were often reminded) alone. She experienced lots of fun, lots of angst, lots of excitement, lots of peril and was always a walking feminist statement, a girl who didn’t need a man to rescue her.

The way we end here is the perfect distillation of all that and the perfect feminist statement. Buffy wins by socking it to the patriarchy, by questioning why on Earth there needs to be just the one Slayer just because a bunch of old people with penises said so, and using Willow’s gloriously feminine magic to smash that particular glass ceiling and make damn sure that every Pitentisl becomes a Slayer, now.

Oh, and if that weren’t enough, Buffy starts the episode by affectionately telling Angel to bugger off back to his own show and killing Caleb with a sword to the bollocks. You’ll excuse me if I don’t get up right now, but that’s quite the statement of intent.

There’s nuance, too, of course. The final episode takes time for Buffyvto golf out hope of getting together with Angel one day, to spend one last night with Spike, to imagine both of them wrestling with oil involved. We get to see Kennedy being a lovely girlfriend to Willow again in the night before battle, and signs that Robin may actually have been able to seduce Faith into seeing him as more than a one night stand. Shouldn’t she be off back to prison at the end, though? She’s no longer needed, and there’s more atonement that needs doing. This is the only sour note.

There’s more. We get the D&D scene, Giles gets one last “The Earth is definitely doomed” for old times sake, and Anya gets a heroic death saving Andrew. And then, of course, there’s Spike’s heroic sacrifice, with those heartrending last words as he gently tells Buffy that actually, he knows she doesn’t really love him but he appreciates the little white lie.

And so Sunnydale is gone, just a crater. No more High School, no more Hellmouth, no more mall, no more Bronze. I’ll miss the place. Thank you, Joss Whedon. He’s had a long and magnificent career but let’s not be silly: Buffy is his masterpiece.

Doctor Who: Arachnids in the UK

“Are you Ed Sheeran? Is he Ed Sheeran?”

Another script by Chris Chibnall and another episode which is well made, in this case with superb CGI in particular, but is, well, quite good. And no more than that. Steven Moffat was a genius writer but tended to write for fans (broadly defined) rather than a general family audience. Chibnall seems to be the reverse. Again he seems to be making smart decisions as showrunner, again he writes stuff that the general public seems to like, again he comes up with a script which is, well, ok.

Forget Moffat, though; the true comparison is with RTD, in terms of style if not talent. Season 37 echoes Season 27- The first episode introduces the new Doctor, then we have an episode in the future, one in the past, and then this: what we have here is the analogue for Aliens of London. The TARDISeers return to Sheffield, are embroiled in an exciting adventure with giant spiders and corporate greed (very topical, I suppose, and the script blatantly admits that the baddie is essentially Trump) and then decide to continue travelling. Oh, there are slight differences; Yaz’s mum being suspicious of the Doctor calls to mind Martha’s mum in Season 29. And indeed the whole TARDIS crew dynamic calls to mind Season One, but the point is, of course, that this is Doctor Who as a set formula, calculated carefully to use what works. What’s this with no pre-titles, though? That certainly seems to be a thing by now.

“Quite good” is still good, though; the spiders look great, and this Hallowe’en episode is suitably full of jump scares. Jodie Whittaker is still absolutely the Doctor, and I like all of Yaz, Ryan and Graham. The dynamic works well, with an ensemble cast allowing for characterisation to be shared out more. The direction is superb, especially the opening shots. And the ending, where all three of the Doctor’s friends choose to stay, is interesting. The Doctor seems very keen to mak sure they all make an informed decision to stay, and emphasises that she can’t guarantee their safety. Is someone going to die?

The bottom line is, though, that yet again I find an episode just quite good, no more than that. I want Doctor Who to amaze me again. Please?

The Birds (1963)

" I have never known birds of different species to flock together. The very concept is unimaginable. Why, if that happened, we wouldn't stand a chance. How could we possibly hope to fight them?"

This is probably the last film I'll be blogging before Hallowe'en. I wanted to do a horror film and considered all sorts- there were all sorts of more obvious candidates, but this film seemed irresistible. And it was the right choice.

I'd like to start with how I just don't care that the bird effects are sometimes dated and not quite right; it was 1963,the film is sufficiently well made to render it a minor issue (it's Hitchcock), and it works in context. But this film makes birds terrifying, and makes you fear that they will, indeed, all gang up together, attack you and peck out your eyes. It’s also a fascinating early ‘69s artefact in which everyone is Mr This or Mrs That, men wear hats and indeed suits for dinner at weekends, and there are all sorts of small “c” conservative indicators yet you just know that none of these people are so moronic as to have voted for that orange wanker. Sigh.

It’s a horror film through and through, with birds terrorising a Californian seaside town gradually but totally. Wonderfully, it offers no explanation of why birds have suddenly attacked humans, but it hints at a bleak, perhaps apocalyptic future while leaving the wider world building to our imagination, focusing on Melanie and her obsession with the handsome but rude Mitch and his interestingly characterised family. The main characters are all compelling and, indeed, the early scenes, very Hitchcock-like, appear to be pointing towards a screwball comedy, with the first scene being blatant romantic farce. But Hitchcock tends to play with genre tropes and then change path, which he does here with perfection.

Tippi Hedren is superb, yes, as is the entire cast. But the real star here is Hitchcock as he once again breaks new ground. Suspense, real horror, perfect for this fiendish season.

Angel: Peace Out

"I know she's a lie!"

And so the whole Jasmine storyline ends, suddenly. It works, it’s a good piece of telly, but you can see the joins as Angel is sidelined off in some CGI dimension where cliffhangers are easily resolved and high priests taunt him about his relationship with his son. Still, this strand successfully builds up what would otherwise be a deus ex machina ending in which Jasmine’s powers are suddenly revoked when Angel suddenly arrives.

As for the other cliffhanger, it feels a bit of a cheat that none of the rest of the gang are killed, instead spending most of the episode in a cell while the drama happens between Jasmine and Connor, who is the episode’s real focus. Still, at least the shared experience has seemingly brought the gang together and papered over some of their differences.

It’s explicitly revealed that Connor has always seen Jasmine’s real face, but doesn’t care. He needs something to believe in and, as he says in his little soliloquy beside a comatose Cordy (has Charisma Carpenter been sacked or something?), it’s nit that he’s naive enough to believe Jasmine but her lies are better than all the other lies.

Interesting, then, that is should be he that kills her, shortly before seemingly sodding off for good, which I suspect many of us wouldn’t mind. Less interesting is the half-hearted debate between Angel and Jasmine about paradise vs. freedom; I trust we all side against tyranny on that one.

So it’s a witty and well-scripted episode, one that actually makes good use of Connor, but one where a good script can’t quite paper over the awkward pacing of the plot, not even with its wit. But we end up with the status quote seemingly restored and our heroes back in the hotel- and up pops the seemingly alive Lilah...

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: End of Days

"Oh! Jaffa Cakes!"

 This is the penultimate episode of Buffy. Ever. So it’s back to good old feminist basics.

All the agency here is female. Yes, Buffy is back, and implicitly the leader again with the agreement of all including Faith, but this time she’s armed with a kick ass MacGuffin and with a largely female gang against a massive evil whose main fighter is a deeply misogynistic man. Her male allies tacitly accept that it’s not about them- Xander leaves town with Dawn to protect her; Giles accepts that research would be better conducted by Willow’s feminine magic, and Andrew is, well, Andrew. Even Angel, turning up at the end, accepts that the fight against Caleb must be Buffy’s alone. Everywhere, female agency abounds.

Which is not to say that all goes well; more redshirt Potentials die. Or that men don’t matter; Spike declares his love for Buffy once more in a meaningful scene. Yet this is a love scene in which traditional gender roles are reversed, with Spike as the supplicant wanting to tie down the hero. But this episodeis one last focus on what the show is about before the last episode where Stuff Happens. Buffy even talks to a mysterious ancient woman who represents the feminine power behind those ancient men who created the acids Slayer and became the Watchers, implying through riddle-like speech that Buffy can only beat the First by doing things differently, perhaps smashing the a Patriarchy a little more.

Other stuff happens, of course. Kennedy looks fated to be an awesome warrior. Anya’s bedside manner is a wonder to behold. Andrew thinks he’ll die in the final battle and seems to have made his peace with that. But we’re all set for that last finale, in terms both of plot and theme. Let’s go...

Doctor Who: Rosa

"You ain't Banksy."

"Or am I?"

Ok, that quite impressed me. It's not the greatest episode ever but it's solid, it works both mechanically and emotionally, and it manages to avoid being overly didactic and preachy as, for me, Vincent and the Doctor was, despite that music. (Well, aside from that song at the end, but we'll come to that). It may not be a particularly deep look at racism, and it may choose a somewhat blatant type of prejudice rather than something more challenging, but it's written by Malorie Blackman who is, I believe, a writer of novels for teenagers, perhaps with that audience in mind. To be fair, though, on that level, it works. It's time to recognise that, while Chibnall may not be on the same level s a writer as RTD or the Moff, his vision of the show- less clever, more kid-friendly- may be closer to what it needs rather than appealing to people like me who will, let's face it, always watch Doctor Who. Besides, I still enjoyed it.

It's impressive how this return to having four TARDISeers, evoking early Hartnell, helps the storytelling and works well with fifty minute contained episodes. It's also nice to see the characters interact- Ryan and Yas discussing racism, Graham and Ryan bonding a little but not quite there, Jodie Whittaker being absolutely the Doctor. It's also interesting, for the first time since The Time Meddler, to see a story entirely about a cat and mouse game changing the little things that can alter history. There's no physical threat here, just a threat to the timeline, but it's chilling that the time travelling antagonist is a racist from  future where racism still exists. After all, here we are, sixty-three years after Rosa Parks refused to get off that bus, and racism is still there, Trump is president, and today's news is full of voter suppression in today's Georgia. Did Jim Crow ever really go away?

Still, we get a nice balance between showing racism in action in the Jim Crow Deep South and having the Doctor and gang put it into context with dialogue which nevertheless feels natural. It’s nicecto seecthevDoctor and Graham forced to be complicit at the end. And we get a celebrity historical cameo from Martin Luther King. And I'll admit I didn't recognise Vinette Robinson from Sherlock until Mrs Llamastrangler pointed her out.

It's interesting, on a more banal note, so see again that, while continuity is much more subtle under Chibnall and  much friendlier to the casual viewer, he still cares about consistency; here we have mentions of Artron Energy, Stormcage (but not River Song) and a Vortex Manipulator. But ultimately this is a good episode but perhaps not a memorable one. And, while I'm no purist and don't object to a song being played over the closing titles, does it have to be such sub-X-Factor chart fodder?

Sigh. I liked it. I really did. It's just that I've become accustomed over the last several years to using a stronger word than "liked".

Evil Dead 2 (1987)

"You bastards! You dirty bastards!"

Well then. This is quite the most splendidly disgusting film I've ever seen, knocking its predecessor into a cocked hat. Outrageously cheeky, too: it blatantly retcons the events of the first film within the first few minutes, making it very clear that Ash is the hero here. And Bruce Campbell is magnificent: simultaneously camp and macho, the Adam West of the slasher film.

Let’s be honest; this film doesn’t have so much a plot as a series of set pieces, but who cares when you’re having this much fun? I laughed out loud several times. I jumped several times. I loved the it with the late Lisa’s head and sharp teeth in Ash’s crotch- ouch. I loved the entire sequence with Ash’s hand turning evil. I loved all the blood, the cheerful bad taste, the Grand Guignol silliness. And best of all this is 1987, and CGI doesn’t really exist yet. It’s all done by stop motion, and if the monsters look like Muppets, frankly who cares? Any film in which a severed eye can fly across the room and end up in someone’s mouth is fine by me. Never before has a horror film been quite so much unadulterated fun.

And then there’s the delightfully random and sequel-hunting mediaeval ending, just when you things can’t get any more fun. Ok, this may not be the best film I’ve seen this year. But it’s easiky the most fun.