Death Race 2000 (1975)

 "I think you're one very large baked potato."

There's such a concept as "the greatest film ever". This film doesn't, it's fair to say, stand comparison with The Godfather. There is, however, a category of "greatest B movie ever". This film, at least of those I've seen, is the clear winner. It's cheap. It's bonkers. It's brilliant. It's produced (not directed) by Roger Corman.

I mean, it's Wacky Races where killing people gets you points in a dystopian future where this serves as both bread and circus. It's a delicious black comedy in a dictatorial America in 2000(!) where "Mr President" has a Winter Palace abroad and blames the French for everything, as in Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. The violence is hilarious, as is the not too serious documentary style. There's a moment where Joe kills a race official, and suddenly they're fair game.

David Carradine is superb, entirely embracing the fim's camp aesthetic. Sylvester Stallone, pre-Rocky, is, well Sylvester Stallone. Between them, they carry the film, although it's sad the superb Simone Griffeth never did much else.

It really is Wacky Races with more skulduggery and more gore ('70s style), but the dry, deadpan humour is delicious. It's very much of its time- one of the racers is a Nazi!-but it's gloriously dark, gloriously violent, and gloriously funny. 

Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970)

 "The're going to kill you, and then dissect you. In that order."

This is, perhaps, a mainly predictable sequel in which another human astronaut- Brent- arrives on the tail of Taylor and discovers the same society in a slightly more ecomomical manner. It seems, at first as though we're getting a rerun of the first, but with a B-movie actor (James Franciscus, of the splendid Valley of Gwangi) instead of an A-list one- although Charlton actually has a significant role here.

Yet ultimately, as the apres invade the Forbidden Zone, after a nice bit of gorilla vs chimpanzee conflict, we learn more, as it now seems the Zone is inhabited by telepathic humans (I love how we don't hear their voices as they interrogate Brent, but his responses are carefully worded so we can follow...) who feel very futuristic and worship a nuclear bomb.This is all delightfully twisted, especially the extended fifty megaton version of "All Things Bright and Beautiful", culminating firstly in all of them removing their suspiciously convincing masks to show their ravaged faces, then a scuffle, then sudden armageddon, which makes me rather interested in how come we shall be getting several more sequels. It's all delightfully bonkers.

The underground bomb worshippers were a definite influence on The Face of Evil, fellow Doctor Who fans. And we get no fewer than two former foes of Adam West's Batman in Maurice Evans and Victor Buono. The latter plays a character calls "Fat Man." Although Don Pedro Colley plays a character called "Negro"which is... yeah, 1970 was a different time. Fortunately.

Breaking Bad: Face Off

 "All I can say is... if I ever get anal polyps, I'll know what to name them."

Wow. That's how you do a finale. This is the perfect showdown- tense, clever, beautifully shot (with Vince Gilligan himself writing and directing)- and with a magnificent climax.

This whole season has been Walt vs Gus, life or death. Here we reach resolution, helped my absolutely superlative performances from Bryan Cranston, Aaron Paul, Giancarlo Esposito and Mark Margolis, who utters not a word, as ever, but conveys so much.

The various twists and turns of the plot are a delight, but ultimately Walt succeeds in having Gus killed... and the scene of his calm, collected, horrific death is extraordinary. So, of course, is the final revelation that little Brock was poisoned, not with ricin, but by Walt. Like Gus, Walt is now not above risking the life of a child. How far he has fallen.

This is not a Skyler episode, but her hands, too, are dipped inexorably in the blood. At the end, on hearing of Gus' death, she asks "Was it you?" and is told that "I won". She gets the rather obvious subtext loud and clear.

Ultimately, though, this is a big step, but one that makes sense, in the extraordinary evolution of Walt from mild-mannered, dorky chemistry teacher to a kind of drug Corleone. Simply sublime.

And the title? Nice pun, but my God, that's dark.

Breaking Bad: End Times

 "There will be an appropriate response..."

The landscape in Breaking Bad, showcasing the severely expansive vistas of New Mexico, have always brought about thoughts of a Western. Well, it's high noon. This is a showdown. The tension is unbearable before we even start, as Walt allows Skyler (who is starting to realise the fuller implications of what she's got herself into), Walt Jr and the baby to escape to protective custody with Hank and Maria. But a man's got to do what a man's got to do. So Walt holes up at home with that gun from a few episodes ago. Cranston is, of course, sublime throughout.

But so are Paul and Esposito, as Gus continues to manipulate Jesse, perhaps with too much transparency by now, paralleled by Hank manipulating Steve Gomez into a raid on the laundry... that seemingly accomplishes nothing. The umpteen dimensional chess continues, even as the stakes rise.

The tension rises, helped by some extraordinary directorial technique: I see Vince Gilligan directed this himself. And then suddenly the tension implodes, as we slowly, along with Jesse, absorb the news that Brock, the son of Jesse's erstwhile girlfriend, has been poisoned with ricin. That ricin. And we're so shocked at this point that we almost forget how exquisite is the plotting here.

Things speed up. Jesse tells his girlfriend (how will he explain it?) that it's ricin. And, in a scene that oozes superlative acting and direction from every pore, he visits Walt, blaming him and about to kill him. Only with Walt's gentle coaxing does it dawn on him that it's Gus who has the motive- manipulating Jesse, the one man stopping him from killing Walt, into doing his work for him- and the form, having killed children in the past.

Walt and Jesse are united, at last, against Gus. Yet Walt's intricate assassination attempt fails. Gus seems almost supernatural in his aloof, non-macho yet alpha male invulnerability.

I can't wait until the next one. My only regret is the fear that I will never again see television as good as this.

Breaking Bad: Crawl Space

 "This man needs help!"

"This man pays my salary..."

The walls are closing in. Walt has alienated both Gus and Jesse, he's in an awkward position with Hank, and Gus is now recovered from his poisoning, getting all avuncular with Jesse and in quietly vindictive mood as we see with his cruel goading of Tio Salamanca, whose children and grandchildren are now all dead. That's what happens when you mess with Gus. Jesse may be brave in insisting Walt not be killed, and he actually has some leverage, but it's all looking pretty ominous.

Skyler has her own problems, although of a much less immediate nature: Ted still won't pay off the IRS, he's in full denial mode, and Skyler is desperate in parallel with Walt, conspiring with Saul to get Ted roughed up. She's stepping, incrementally, further and further into criminality, just as her husband did. And this time, with grim comedy, she has blood on her hands as Ted is accidentally killed. Ouch.

Walt may manage to deter Hank through increasing desperation, and is lucky to arouse suspicion. But it's only a matter of time until Hank checks out the laundry. 

So finally we come to a denouement: a hooded Walt kidnapped and sent to face a visibly angry Gus in the desert. He's offered freedom and a clean break at the cost of giving up meth for good, and he could take it; with the car wash, his family is probably secure. Yet his defiant pride makes him refuse the offer, and so his family is doomed. The intricate plotting reaches a moment of true sublimity when a desperate Walt, hoping to give his family a new life, can't do so because Skyler used the money for Ted. Bryan Cranston gives a performance here which is absolutely top tier. The man is one of the greats.

The walls are closing in. Two episodes to go. This is televisual perfection.

Why Didn't They Ask Evans?- Episode One

 "Do you have any balls?"

This is an interesting concept for what is the first original BritBox series I've blogged or, indeed, watched. Directed by Hugh Laurie, it looks amazing, with some very gorgeous direction of the Denbighshire coast. I like also how it immediately diagnoses and addresses the main problem wth Agatha Christie (look, no Poirot!) in her snobbery. This is addressed directly in making it clear that Frankie (Lady Frances) clearly cares not a lot about the relative inferiority of the clever but struggling vicar's son (Bob) she fancies. Yes, Bob himself is no horny handed son of toil, but the wider question is nicely addressed by the character of Dr Jones, a Welshman of very ordinary origins who os neveryheless treated as intelligent, wise, and very much to be respected.

This is an intriguing mystery, based on the intriguing mystery of a man falling from a Denbighshire cliff with the intriguing words "Why didn't they  ask Evans? with some intriguing items in his office. It's also an exploration of the seemingly wonderful Frankie- beautiful, incredibly witty, which we men find VERY sexy, and determinedly unsnobbish.

The mystery is intriguing. But so is the nuanced father/son relationship between Bob and his well-meaning vicar father Richard. So is the delightful romance between the lovely Frankie, more innocent than her wit implies, than him. I'm very intrigued, and this is tantalising stuff.

Inspector Morse: The Ghost in the Machine

 "You'll never get on if you can't master your subjunctives!"

This is, if I recall correctly, only the second episode of Inspector Morse, beginning its third series, not to be adapted from a novel by Colin Dexter- although it's based on his idea- and thus to be a script developed directly for television.

It shows.This episode is not particularly atypical, but it is the finest so far. It is, admittedly, helped by a dazzlingly charismatic performance by the sublime Patricia Hodge as (spoilers!) a very human murderer who hides behind aristocratic iciness. It's an episode with a pleasingly intricate plot and- always important, and what the likes of Agatha Christie neglect- excellent characterisation. Unlike Christie, both Colin Dexter and Morse himself were not born with silver spoons in their mouths, as many ordinary RP native speakers are not, and Morse's contempt for the aristocracy, I'm sure, reflects that of Dexter. And the irony of his snobbery- particularly foregrounded here- of Lewis' Geordie origins, whereas he is, of course from a fine part of the world. Not like them Mackems who, I'm told, are oiks.

The twists and turns are splendid. So are Clifford Rose and Patsy Byrne. But Patricia Hodge is truly extraordinary in what is the finest Morse yet.

Luke Cage: Suckas Need Bodyguards

 "Bugger off!"

This is, I must hasten to point out, a splendidly clever and entertaining episode in its own right,  but it's surprising in how suddenly it seems to tie up the first half of the season and offer what looks like an ending of sorts, with Cottonmouth arrested on the strength of Scarfe's detailed notes of his work for Cottonmouth and the full scale of the police corruption, now exposed and destroyed. The subplots of Cottonmouth's increasing desperation reach their climax, their nemesis here.

Also in serious triuble, both from her dodgy cousin's arrest and from a rather gleefully well-executed media ambush. It seems the baddies are defeated. Except... early in the episode, Maria suggests to Cottonmouth various ways to kill or hurt Luke. I suspect this will have consequences.

Luke's powers, too, have become very visible, at least locally. This, too, will have consequences. And there is much musing over this. From Trish (remember her, from Jessica Jones?) supporting him on the radio to the more determined suppirt of Claire, Luke has his friends. 

Yet there's another emotional heart of this episode; Scarfe's confession and death. His last few scenes may be mostly action, but he redeems himself by destroying Cottonmouth. But poor Misty loses her mentor. She's a decent person while he's a despicable human being who is directly responsible for his son's death by keeping a gun in his house. 

We end with... an ending. or do we? I'm calling it: Cottonmouth will in some way use Luke's fugitive past against him. This is good telly.

Poirot: The Dream

 "I am too understanding towards my employees!"

I may have been somewhat ambivalent towards this series- despite some solid acting and well-developed characters for a whodunit series- the scripts have been somewhat variable in quality, and I suspect that Agatha Christie's detective story talents lend themselves more to a longer format than the short stories upon which these stories are based. I shall, one day, return to Poirot.

Ot's pleasing, though, for the series to finish upon such a high. I love how the creative introduction to Farleys Foods via the nostalgia hit of British Pathe leads to a succession of scenes showing us how Benedict Farley is an old Victorian industrialist bastard who sneers at unions and is rude as hell. His thick glasses and muttonchops, surely an affectation in the much more modern 1935, mark him out as the pantomime villain he is, even sacking his daughter's lover for being too non-U.

The murder mystery is playfully clever, with Joely Richardson's character being almost metatextual in how she declares herself to Poirot to be so obviously guilty that she must surely be the red herring. I love, also, how Poirot has a comical moment of crisis with the Belguan sleuth equivalent of writer's block and the comical B plot with Miss Lemon's typewriter.

When I return tom Poirot, let's have more like this... but longer episodes, please. Until then, adieu.

Breaking Bad: Salud

 "I had to spank you..."

Wow. Yet again we see how this extraordinary season fits together like clockwork as we follow on from the Gus flashbacks from a few episodes ago and see that pool again, this tim ithout the yellow-tinted camerawork to tell us non-diegetically that we're looking at the past. Plot threads develop, and fascinatingly so, but for once the feud between Gus and Walt must yield to a much older feud of Gus'.

There's so much cleverness in how this is written, scripted, shown and played. A simple sub-plot about Walt missing Walt Jr's birthday becmes the catalyst for so much more, as Walt has to pretend it was a gambling relapse and experiences his son's tender concern... and accidentally calls him Jesse, something which is bound to be referred to again.

But the core of all this is Bryan Cranston's extraordinary monologue about his own childhood memories of his late father, who died of Huntingdon's Disease when he was six. It's an incredible bit of acting, followed in turn by Walt Jr's impression of how his own father has seemed over the last year.

There's also Skyler's plan to save Ted from the IRS- and herself and Walt from prison, of course- in a sharp example of how her plot threads have changed over the last season or so as she's fully embraced criminality, at least in its white collar form. The fictional "bequest" from an "aunt" in Luxembourg is to solve that debt problem... and he's spending it on other things! It's a fascinating sub-plot, especially as it shows how the power has shifted between them.

And power, of course, shifts south of the border too, as Gus serves cold his revenge on Don Eladio in an immaculately planned assassination in which an extraordinarily unflappable Gus takes a calculated yet dangerous risk. There is an air of menace. There is violence. There is Jesse proving himself in a shootout after Mike is wounded. And the sublime Giancarlo Esposito gives us what must surely be the most elegant vomiting scene in television history.

Breaking Bad: Bug

 "A guy this clean has got to be dirty..."

This entire season, as I've said more than once before, is something of a multi-dmensional chess game between Gus and Walt. There's a lot going on, you have to pay attention... yet the narrative is superbly done. And Gus is clearly winning.

All is not well with Gus as he is, seemingly, under siege by the rival gang. But literally everything with this is seen from Jesse's subjective point of view and we're left to question whether events are happening quite as he perceives them. This is a theme throughout the episode. Skyler, for example, sees the car wash becoming profitable and sees a possibility of Walt being able to give up his "other" job. She doesn't see the reality: Walt has two possible trajectories, taking over from Gus or death, and it's squeaky bum time.

Ted is back, and he's under investigation by the fraud people from the US equivalent of HMRC, who seem scarily powerful. Yet Skyler, cleverly, puts on a performance and makes the accounting dodginess look like incompetence rather than fraud, saving him from prison... and herself from dangerously prying eyes.

Then there's Hank's car tracker, which has its own point of view which is equally subject to manipulation, except at the end where Walt knows exactly where Jesse was the previous night and that he failed, yet again, to kill Gus, putting Walt in peril. Yet it's all so cleverly orchestrated by Gus- perhaps more of it than we realise- to divide and conquer yet again. And this time, it seems, for good.

I'm loving this season. Breaking Bad gets better and better.

Doctor Who: Legend of the Sea Devils

 "Good, love it when there's not enough time."

Well, that was... perfectly fine. Yes, I'm damning with faint praise a bit here, but this is a genuinely engaging swashbuckling romp which will hopefully have appealled to the kids, which is no bad thing and indeed rather important. I'm the first to recognise that the sort of Who liked by fortysomething geeks like myself is not necessarily the family-friendly stuff that is necessary for its survival. It's a central paraxox of Doctor Who. Nevertheless, it was ever thus, and the programme has had periods of great success, far more so than now. I ought to not that Little Miss Llamastrangler is seven, perhaps not quite the target age, and Doctor Who just doesn't grab her.

Still, this is a pleasing little romp, although it certainly doesn't aspire to any great degree of depth. The pirate/sci-fi plot is well done, and the humour is relatively good, as are the performances. It's nice to see Doctor Who set in historical China with a largely Chinese cast and a Chinese director. The Sea Devils look cool and work well. There's no real explanation as to why the main Sea Devil baddie is behaving as he is, or what his story is, but that isn't necessarily a major problem, although it's something a better writer would have deftly handles without too much exposition.It's all very high concept, with a Sarlacc-style sea serpent (alas, no Myrka!) and the Sea Devils travelling around in a pimped-up pirate ship because of, er, reasons. The rule of cool tends to trump narrative logic here, but that's generally fine in Doctor Who up to a point, and said point isn't really overstepped here.

What doesn't quite work so well is the character stuff. It's nice and heartwarming to see Dan beginning to reconnect with Di, but the heartfelt romanctic scene between the Doctor and Yas falls flat. Yes, the Doctor can live forever, barring accidents, while Yas has a normal human lifespan. This isn't new or original, and we're even reminded within the dialogue that the Doctor has been married in the past. The actors do their best, but the scene just doesn't have the emotional weight than it should, and that's entirely due to the writing.

I genuinely quite liked it, though. And the trailer looks somewhat exciting.

The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, by Laurence Sterne

 I can honestly say, English graduate that I am, that I’ve never read a novel quite like this before. I’m familiar with the broad course of English literature but I must confess that there is something of a gap in my knowledge from roughly the plays of the Restoration up to Jane Austen. I have, in short, much neglected the eighteenth century novel.

I do not suppose for a moment that this magnificently bonkers text is in any way typical of its century. Yet the wonder is that such delightful weirdness should be possible at all. A mere half century later, the novel as an art form would be hedged about with all sorts of conventions in terms of plot, narrative, character, the whole lot. Yet here we have neither a beginning, middle, nor an end. We have a self-confessed unreliable narrator who cheerfully fails to deliver on what is promised by the title. We have no plot, no real structure, and characters who in their complexity defy description, much as real people do.

The whole thing is extremely silly, and full of the sort of metatextual fun- although we should not be anachronistic and call it postmodernism- that would be verboten a few decades hence.

Today, the novel is fun, certainly, but also dense with allusions and so not an easy read despite how enjoyable it is. But this is a pleasant and exhilarating taste of a century much earthier and less po-faced than the one which followed it. I enjoyed reading this immensely.

The World Is Not Enough (1999)

 "There's no point in living of you can't feel alive."

This is the finest Brosnan Bond film so far. I was unimpressed with GoldenEye; Tomorrow Never Dies was better; this is a superb film that channels the best of Bond.

It's all very late '90s, of course. Q is about to retire, and his replacement, the fittingly amusing R, played by a sprighly John Cleese, a mrere sixty years old, describes the latest Bond supercar as having "six cupholders". Amongst the globetrotting to Bilbao, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Istanbul is a superb set piece boat chase through London, including the Millennium Dome. And, of course, Miss Moneyponey says of a cigar that "I know exactly where to put that."

There's only one decade where that line makes sense.Still, let us note tht Bill Clinton was an abusive wanker, and Kenneth Starr was the same by proxy. May they both suffer lifelong impotence.

There's an innocence to this world pf post Cold War, End of History hubris, where there are no significant hostile countries and where threats of tyranny or nuclear armageddon, that feels charmingly dated. Yet the whole dynamic of Bomd and Elektra offers a surprisingly thoughtful take on sex and to wthe extent it can involve deceiving and using people.  

All this, and we have some splendid set pieces, a supern Bond villain in Robert Carlyle, a nice bit of misdirection where we think Elektra is the Bond girl but she turns out to be the big baddie, and one of the best theme tunes ever. This is, quetly, one of the very best Bonds.

Luke Cage: Just to Get a Rep

 "Don't you need a gun?"

"I am the gun!"

This is yet another superlative episode. On the surface it's about the deliciously bad yet nuanced Cottonmouth- a bit man, but much reduced after Luke's coup last episode- against Luke, who has almost no resources but is super-strong and invulnerable. And Luke, by now, is determined to fight the good fight, despite Misty's entreaties that vigilanteism will just cause more suffering in a debate we've seen many times here, and in both Daredevil and Jessica Jones. The climax has Luke following Cottonmouth's nasty, populist speech at Pop's memotial- denouncing "foreigners" and "arcane abilities"- with a veiled and uplifting denunciation of cottonmouth.

This round is to Luke, then. Especially as he successfully puts a stop to Cottonmouth trying to make Harlem's businesses suffer to get revenge on Luke. But it seems there's trouble ahead. Cottonmouth may be in financial trouble, but he's acquiring special bullets (an alien metal?) that may be able to hurt Luke. And Shades finally recognises Carl Lucas, and explains all to Cottonmouth: this could prove equally troublesome.

Yet it's not just about that; there are character moments aplenty. Cottonmouth has a genuine pride in refusing to sell his club because "No one black has ever done anything like this". He may be a bigot, like his cousin, but he is what he is for a reason. And there's lots of subtle social commentary on Harlem and what it means to be a black man in America.

There's also Claire, fresh from quitting at the hospital after the cover-up in the second season of Daredevil, arriving home and reminiscing on the strange things she's seen. It's clear she's going to do something.

I'm loving this. Excellent telly.

Poirot: The King of Clubs

 "Dear oh dear! Here we go again..."

This is one of those stories with a very Agatha Christie twist about the very murder itself. It feels well-executed. It's well-acted and well-produced. Yet, once again, despite all this plus the very palpable period richness, it somehow isn't anywhere close to being as satisfying as, say, the Granada Sherlock Holmes.

It's clever, yes, but in a very clockwork, very typical Agatha Christie way. I suppose, being from a ahort story as all this series is- suggesting this format is not deal- this is inevitable, and perhaps explains why I feel so lukewarm about a firt series that,objectively speaking, seems to have much to recommend it.

Neverthleless... it's a nice glimpse into the film industry in the 1930s,with more than usual period charm. There is, again, a nicely judged ense that Japp, although Poirot may run rings around him, is nevertheless a seasoned and competent professional who is, alas, not a genius.

It's an entertaining and well-made fifty minutes, I suppose. Buta certain spark is missing,

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

 

This is the first time, I think, that I’ve ever blogged a novel after seeing and indeed blogging the film adaptation, something I vaguely try to avoid. But I enjoyed this.

I’ve not read any twenty-first century science fiction novels, really, having focused more on the classics, so I’ve no idea whether cyberpunk is still a thing in our online age. This could certainly be a cyberpunk novel, but one written in an an age of MMORGs, augmented reality and a general blurring of real life and online life, which is a theme here. The Oasis is a refuge from an environmentally devastated corporate dystopia, but said dystopia is making incursions into said refuge.

What makes the novel such fun, though, is the quest for the egg and its twists and turns… alongside the pop culture references which appeal to this fortysomething geek.

This is a lightweight read, nothing particularly clever or groundbreaking. But it’s fun, and just being fun is no crime.

The Curse of the Mummy's Tomb (1964)

 "The public love to live dangeroiusly, as long as there's no real danger in it..."

Not every Hammer horror is a classic sadly. This isn't an awful film, and it looks gorgeous in places- the spectacle of the treasures from the toom, upon which we linger during the openimng titles, are so dsumptuous and impressibve we can very much forgive the obvious matte painted backgrounds in the obviously studio-bound desert scenes early on.

This is, I suppose, a fairly traditional mummy romp. The mummy looks good. The plot is decent, although one has to raise an eye at Adam's seduction technique of saying that an intelligent woman should not be a bluestocking but should instead use her intelligence to run a household and not worry her pretty little head over all that academic learning. Well then.

There's a very vulgar American stereotype, an ncultured P.T. Barnum wannabe. There's the inevitable George Pastell as a native Egyptian red herring, a man who proves to have noble intentions, even if his unexpected heroic sacrifice is shrouded in embarrassing stereotyping. 

Yet what stops this film quite catching fire, I think, is partluy that the cast, while generally competent, does not quite have the charisma that one would expect from such a film. There are no real stars and, while it's not necessarily a bad thing to cast character actors as leads, here it doesn't quite work. Everyone is competent onscreen but there is no magnetic screen presence.

Then there's the slow pacing in what is an awfully padded fim for one so short, and the fact we don't even see the mummy until far toolate. That said, though, the film is well made,and George Pastell is superb even if the stereotyped part he plays is not.

Luke Cage: Step in the Arena

 "I'm kind of strong..."

Wow. I'm on record as saying, several times, that superhero origin stories often disappoint. I'm not familiar with the no doubt very '70s original from the comics, but this was superb. Perhaps we had something of a textbook prison drama with, as the esteemed Mr Zimmerman once put it, "an innocent man in a living hell", complete with overt Deep South racism, illicit gladiator fighting, an evil governor you love to hate, lots of exercise equipment, violence, and a doomed best friend. 

Thje sheer number of cliches is a strength here, though, not a weakness. Sometimes a cliche can provide a short cut to allow you to whiz through lots of events at pace, which happens here. This is absolutely in tune with the thoughtful mood of the series while also being absolutely a superhero origin story. Best of all, we get a glimpse of Luke dressed, briefly, in a version of his proper Power Man costume until he catches himself in a mirror and remarks that he looks like a "damn fool".

We even get links to Jessica Jones as Luke first meets Reva in flashback, although not all is revealed- we still know not how or why Carl Lucas was originally framed in the first place. But this is a massive and superb episode, framed by brief sequences in the present day as Luke helps Connie to escape from the rubble. 

Surely Misty has to be wondering what Luke's secret is?

Poirot: The Incredible Theft

 "No, no, no, Hastings! Women do not want to talk about Berninis and cubic thingummies!"

This episode was... actually pretty bloody good. By far the best yet.

It's a twist on that old detective story standby as epitomised by Conan Doyle's The Naval Treaty, where top secret plans are stolen.It's quite an interesting setting for such a story- the 's, with Hitler and Mussolini causing trouble and an arms race in full swing with the spectre of war looming while all this between-the-wars existence of country houses and passing the port carries on regardless.

The script and dialogue, far more than usually, are witty and fun, and the cleverness of the plot is fun in its own intricate way, not so much a whodunit as a devilishly clever howdunit with more than one big double bluff.  

All this, and the characterisation of Poirot, Hastings, Miss Lemon and Japp is in full swing by this point. I enjoyed this. At this rate I may even return to do the second series after this one. We'll see.

Breaking Bad: Hermanos

 "You're not in Chile any more...."

Breaking Bad doesn't have bad episodes. It doesn't really have good episodes either; just variations on excellent. This is one of the better variations, ans something new, something we've been waiting to see: a character study focusing on Gus. 

That's not to say it's all Gus, of course. We get to see a tenacious and rejuvenated Hank and a fascinatingly jittery and stressed out Walt who must surely be close to a breakdown with the need tourgently off Gus while Hank is prowling around... all while Jesse, under similar pressures, is as calm as a cucumber. We also learn that Jesse is giving money to his ex and her son but refusing to do the emotional labour of seeing them as that would mean having actual feelings.

Just as fascinatingly, Walt's panicking is preceded by a scene of him talking to another cancer patient and warning him against passive fatalism and letting go: Walt knows very well that he's mortal, but his life is bleeding well his for as long as he has it.

But, yes, Gus. Giancarlo Esposito owns this episode, with the slight variation of a blank facial expression being the key moment in several gripping scenes here. We get to see him handle a police interview with rehearsed aplomb, and how he can make Walt squirm with a look. And then, through a brief dreamlike shot of some water, we move towards an incredibly filmed, red and yellow tinted, glimpse into the past of the enigmatic Chilean. He's a compelling character, compellingly acted. And it's quite clear how, and why, he hates old Hector.

This is, yet again, extraordinary television.

Breaking Bad: Problem Dog

 "Let's ditch the thesaurus..."

I'm loving this season. It is, as I suspected, all a (mostly) very calm and totally zero sum comnpetition between Walt and Gus, only one of whom can survive. Gus is ultra-cool, calm and collected, a man of no drama and no sudden movres, for whom nothing is unplanned. Waly, or Heisenberg, may not be the polatr opposite but, well... he's capable of joyriding in a stupidly expensive car, setting it on fire ad having to pay $52,000 to but off the consequences.

There are other consequences too. One of them is a staggering income of millions per year, far more, as Skyler now realises, than one mere car wash could possibly launder. Still, I'm sure sjhe will find a clever solution. Skylrer, despite her protests, is proving to be quite adaptable,including in terms of her morals. With time to adjust, she's happy to accept a life of comfort from criminality, and also clearly finds Heisenberg sexier than Walt...

More immediately significant is Walt and Jesse plotting together to kill Gus. There's a clever, and well-earned, bit of misdirection here as we learn that Jesse, while he has his demons (the opening scene, with him shooting baddies in a video game but seeing one of the baddies turn into Gale, is dripping with significance for his character), is no fool, and realises exactly how he's being played by Mike and Gus. Yet the opportunity never quite presents itself.

Gus's trouble proves to come from another angle; there's a reason why Hank is doing so well lately as the gripping final scene has him doing his Poirot routine to his old DEA colleagues on why Gus is their man... and he has Gus' fingerprints as the coup de grace.

Yet it's Jesse's episode, and Aaron Paul is phenomenon. His final speech at the 12 step programme, angrily deconstructing the selfish amorality of the 12 step philosophy, is powerful. And he finally burns that bridge magnificently.

This is all very clever, and things are speeding up. Television doesn't get a lot better than this.

Aliens vs Predator (2004)

 "And they usecus like cattle. They're hosts for us to breed."

 I was poised to watch something su/btitlred and intellectual until, at the last moment, I decided to watch this. Parasite will come later. It's Saturday night, the little one is in bed, the missuys is gaming, and I have a bottle of Rioja.

You know what? This is goodf. Yes, I know: it centres on a mysterious pyramoid found in Antarctica from prehistorical times, showing clear influences from Aztec and Cambodian culturres as well sas Egyptian civilisation, which is orders of magnitude older, making nonsense of the history.

I don't give a shite.

This is, if we ignore the fact it ends in the middke of things and doesn't actually end, actually not a bad film at all. LKet's hooe, however, that we get a resolution.

The script is excellent until it suddenly stops without resolution. It's a plus that the cast abounds with resoected character actors rather than stars. Lance Henriksen shines as a tycoon who is actually acting in the interests of the greater good, if not entirely without the sae desire for glory that they all share. It's interesting that this should be set in comntemporary times and, er, recycle the general vibes from both Sgtargate and Erich von Daniken.

Notghing here is original, But it's actualkly fairly well written with a strong intitial hook, and the cast is superb. It may be exploitative tosh, but thus is avtually pretty decent.

Clockwise (1986)

 “It's not the despair, Laura. I can stand the despair. It's the hope."

I was probably still in primary school when I last saw this film, expecting a straightforward comedy that, after all, starred John Cleese. That's not what I got, and I recall being disappointed.

What a difference thirty-five odd years makes.

I'm not, as a rule, one for farces. They run like clockwork; they tend to be masterful exercises in plotting and to showcase superb comic acting but, for me, they tend to be more a thing to admire than to love.

Yet this film, although genuinely funny in a gently facical way and showcasing a bravura performance from John Cleese and lots of fun little appearances from various familiar character actors, has a lot to say beneath the surface humour. Brian Stimpson is a man obsessed with punctuality and propriety who was, we learn, perpetually late in his youth. He has overcome his own flaws through fear of his own weaknesses. I can identify with that, certainly, in my own life.

Yet he's also a man with a slight chipon his shoulder but determinedly ambition. He's the firsty head of a state school to char the Headmasters' Conference, which is dominated by the public school clique that runs far too many things. He knows, deep down, despite his upper middke class lifestyle and respectability, that he will never be as "good" as they are, but he's chairman now. And, with all those evenings at Tory party events, he hopes this may be a step to political success. He can dream.

And yet, alas, not all ambitions can be realised in Thatcher's Britain. Hubris is still a thing. Sois nemesis. Stimpson's arrogance lets him down in the end, ruining his life but bringing him, also, a much-needed momemt of self-realisation and genuine self-awareness, wearing a monhk's robe on the side of a country road.

This is a superblyu crafted and surprisingly deep film. I'm impressed.