Office Space (1999)

 "The thing is, Bob, it's not that I'm lazy. It's that I just don't care."

It's a shame I waited so damn long to see this film. So long, in fact, that the office life it depicts is not really that of the present generation with its working from home, no office dress code and less use of printers.

This is, simply put, brilliant. It's interesting that this is the year before The Office and ploughs similar ground- albeit through the delightfully twisted mind of Mike "underappreciated because a lot of his stuff is animation" Judge. Yet it's extraordinary how low budget this film is, and how- Jennifer Aniston aside, for 'tis the 90s- there is so little star wattage. This film stands or falls by whether or not it's funny. And it is, by God.

We've all been Peter. I certainly was, circa 2003 to '05, only without the embezzlement, or the cubicles, which seem to be very much an American thing. But the petty office jealousies over things like staplers ring very true. And I love the concept of Peter ceasing to give a crap about work and suddenly finding his career in the ascendant; alas, the world isn't quite like that. 

The period details have dated. But the underlying points haven't. The gentle digs at the "I can't be bothered to pronounce your name" racism directed at Samir rings true. So do all those annoying microaggressions of management. Fortunately I'm now promoted just far enough for that not to be a part of my life, but I've certainly been there.

This film is exquisite. Watch it. And be glad it isn't 1999 any more.

Velvet Goldmine (1998)

 "I needn't mention how essential dreaming is to the character of the rock star."

It would be an exaggeration, perhaps, to say that rock 'n' roll is gay. The gayness of early '70s glam was not quite as prominent as portrayed here. Yet the LGBT+ness was present in real life as it was here- the New York Dolls; Bowie's (oops; Slade's) bisexuality; the whole damn aesthetic; Lou Reed having had that electric shock treatment to get rid of all traces of gayness, here attributed to Curt Wild, a character otherwise based blatantly on the rather less gay Iggy Pop.

It's a welcome perspective. And it's to be applauded that Todd Haynes, an American director, sees the importance of mudsic hall, as much as the blues, to British rock in general and Bowie in paticular. See also Ian Dury, Roxy Music (heard in this film) anfd the DNA of British punk and post-punk bands who may well know nothing of music hall. This is, I feel, an underexplored area. 

This is a glorious film, clever and directed with artistic confidence which nevertheless serves the narrative, however weird it may get. Obviously the narrative- a journalist researching how Bowie- oops, Slade- disappeared after faking his death, evokes Citizen Kane. That's no bad thing. The exploration of early '70s gay and general British culture are well done- a couple of old queens speak in subtitled palare. Vada that, me jolly old eek. Ooh, Mr Horne, etc. There are orgies. There's Angie Bowie- er, Mandy. 

Importantly, there are triumphant performances from jonathan Rhys Meyer and Ewan McGregor. Christan Bale, as ever, is a bit meh, but Eddie Izzard is superb as the quintessential rock manager.

And the whole thing is infused wth the spirit of Oscar Wilde, apparently a foundling deposited in 1854 by a flying saucer! His amulet of gayness is symbolic. Characters quote him at the drop of a hat. His aesthetic movement is echoed throughout,

This is a much, much more important and serious film than I'd expected to see. It's magnificent, an elowquent plea for the very important gay side of rock 'n' roll.

What If... Doctor Strange Lost His Heart Instead of His Hands?

 "Stephen, this path only leads to darkness and the end of this reality."

This episode is very good: a timey-wimey tale of another universe's Doctor Strange, one who lost not his hands in the crash, but his beloved Christine, and whose obsession to bring back his love eventually destroys the universe in exactly the sort of hubristic act we know Strange is pretty much capable of- that's the tension that makes the character so bloody good.

There's so much to enjoy here. Strange's desperate Groundhog Day moment as he attempts to save Christine again and again, only for every conceivable alternative to result in her death. The revelation that the Ancient One has split Strange into two. Strange's horrified realisation of what he has done. And, for the first time, an interaction with the inscrutable Watcher as he begs for help only to be told the Watcher, as ever, "cannot interfere".

Well, except when he can. I bet we will ultimately see that happen.

Overall this is an excellent bit of telly, full of heart and imagination. It is, perhaps, just a little too reminiscent of Steven Moffat's writing, particularly on Doctor Who, not to have been quite clearly influenced, but nevertheless I very much enjoyed this.

The Sandman: The Doll's House

 "It's trerrible. We know."

Watching this episode brought back long- repressed and surprisingly vivid memories of the comic book. It was, again, much more faithful than one might expect. Yet it didn't quite manage, despite being very good indeed and extremely well made, to quite match the source material. Of course, I wouldn't have noticed this had I not read the story in its original medium, but it was my impression nonetheless.

Still, this is very good telly. We start with Desire and Despair, very odd twins, inferring that they are behind much has gone wrong, but then we turn to the tale of Rose, bereaved and charismatic, as she searches for her long-lost little brother with her equally bereaved surrogate mother (loved the sudden revelation she'd been talking to her dead husband), and travels to London to find a great grandmother... who is still alive despite falling asleep in 1916 when Dream was captured, aged 12. Yeah. This made sense in 1989, but these days it's best not looked at so closely.

Loved the serial killer convention committee, attracting the attention of the Corinthian. Loved Stephen Fry as Gilbert. Loved the whole Florida family. In fact, I loved the characters, the narrative and the whole damn thing. It's just that, somehow, the comic was more poetic.

What If... the World Lost Its Mightiest Heroes?

 "Sir, I'm going to have to ask you to exit the donut."

Another intriguing, if very short, eposode here as Nick Fury has to deal with the original avengers (sans the still-frozen Captain America) being killed by a mystery baddie before the Avengers Initiative can take off.

It's clever- I like the use of Loki, and the twist at the end as he almost casually takes over Earth. I'm not sure about the Coulson jokes- its all a bit "ha ha, he's gay", but the reveal as to what the POD was is clever- it's Hope Van Dyne being killed in action for SHIELD, causing Hank Pym to go all unhinged and- nice touch- to don the mantle of Yellowjacket in a nod to the comics, this time thankfully without the domestic violence.

It's a shame not all the voice actors are the real actors, but these are big stars, not always available, and it's easier to use understudies for animation- although I hope the non-appearance of Scarlett Johansen isn't because of that massive mardy Disney threw at her last year.

A little rushed, then, but this is engaging enough.

Breaking Bad: Felina

 "I did it for me. I liked it. I was good at it. And... I was really... I was alive."

We start with Walt, miserable and freezing in New Hampshire. Alone, isolated, off grid, trying to get a car to start and getting a police scare to remind him he's hunted. Oh, and he's dying. He's in a grim situation.

Yet, from this downbeat teaser, we get Walt visiting Albuquerque one late time like an avenging demon. The plan to eventually provide for his family is inspired, even if, like everything else, it's Heisenberg. It's Heisenberg who tells the truth to Skyler. It's even Heisenberg who touches his baby daughter for one last time, as even monsters love their children. But monsters can be terrible, and Heisenberg more than most.

I correctly predicted before the start exactly who would die in this finale. That doesn't matter. Poetically, Jack and his whole gang, Lydia and Walt all HAD to die. It was just a matter of how, and it was all realised with such brilliance, from the machine gun contraption in the boot to the dispatching of both Todd and Jack.

Best of all, of course, is Walt's phone chat with Lydia, casually and cruelly telling her that the reason she probably feels under the weather is the ricin (at last!) that he slipped her.

Walt and Jesse's final parting is meaningful, as is Jesse's joyful freedom. For Walt, though, there can be only one ending.

A perfect finale to a perfect television series. This is literally sublime.

What If... T'Challa Became a Star Lord?

 "You are very articulate for a duck..."

"That, Sir, is very closed-minded!"

It's fascinating, with a second episode, to see what is just format and what is not. Hence we see the same intro with the Watcher, equally effective. But then we see a fascinating tale of T.Challa, in many ways a batter and more beloved Starlord, who even convinces Thanos(!) to join the Ravagers, is adored by Yondu, and tries hard to reconcile Nebula with her father. All while acting as an interstellar Robin Hood, naturally... and co-opting his foes, as the wonderful first scene demonstrates.

Chadwick Boseman is, of course, superb. T'Challa gets to be a huge hero, ending universal poverty and freeing Howard the Duck to boot. There's just the minor inconvenience, after a happy family reunion in Wakanda, that the world is going to end because the wrong Star Lord was chosen. Bummer.

Yes, this is, like all of this series, a short half hour bit of fun. But I loved it.

The Sandman: The Sound of Her Wings

 "That's all there is, little one. That's all you get."

Yes, that scene... I'm a parent and it shook me deeply. I'm so glad they cut away before the mother's discovery of what had happened. But that's the point; death is taboo, and this episode faces it. The first half, covering the comic book issue of the same name, is actually almost entirely faithful to an original which can't really be improved upon. Kirby Howell-Baptiste, while not a goth, is perfect as Neil Gaiman's death: a lovely, caring person who finds meaning in easaing people's transition to the "Sunless Lands".

And that's the point; the Endless exist to fulfil their function. They are not gods, however aloof and arrogant they may seem. They are our servants, not our masters. And Dream, depressed after his recent triumph, gets a much-needed lesson from his very lovely older sister.

And then, after twenty minutes, we get to a faithful retelling of the tale of Hob Gedling, a man who is, essentially, seen to be cheerfully indisting, in a pub, that he will never die. As a resident of small town Leicestershire I could mardily point out that only in London, in pubs frequented by the likes of Chaucer, Marlowe and Shakespeare, do passing gods happen to grant immortality to ordinary blokes out of mere philosphical curiosity. But chips belong on plates, not on shoulders. And chips here in the provinces are both better and cheaper than in that London, of which I'm actually rather fond. Plus, I suppose, there are benefits to living in a part of the country where you can have an ordinary profession and yet own your own home. 

And perhaps two passing gods will do this for me sometime. I'm with Hob: life has its ups and downs; the downs are crushing. But life will always be rich and beautiful, and I will always want it.

So see you at the pub in 2122?

The New Mutants (2020)

 "I masturbated twice..."

We're not supposed to like this film, are we? It was the last Marvel film made by Fox but released after Disney bought Fox, hence monkeyed around a lot by exacys, cut to ribbons, unloved, released without fanfare, left to sink at an unprepared box office, in peak Covid.

Well, I really liked it. I'm not saying it's the greatest fuilm of all time- it's a little superhero horror coming-of-age film, a combination that works rather well- but it's a nice little film, much as I may have been swayed by the fact I went in with low expectations.

The horror works well. The Smiling Men are effective and it's directed well for scares in a way horror films generally aren't. The plot is clever, substituting a sinister corporate doctor for Professor X and making Dani' powers the A threat. Yet it hinges on yje five man characters- Dani (Mirage); Rahne (Wolfsbane); Illyana (Magik, of whose brother we hear nowt); Sam (Cannonball) and Roberto (Sunspot), all of whom came to the institution tragically via killing people with their powers, and are being secretly trained to kill. It's a nice bit of misdirection that they are not, in fact, in Xavier's school and the institution's supposed connection with the X-Men is a lie.

Yes, there's a focus on Dani, and up to a point Rahne and Illyana. But all five of them get to shine, This is a well-written, directed and acted piece of cinema, with visual hints at Bill Sienciewicz to boot. I love it. You probably haven't seen it. Please do.

What if... Captain Carter Were the First Avenger?

 "Who needs a plan? I have shield!"

So Loki has unleashed the Multiverse. Branches now proliferate. So here's the first.

In alternate history (Google the fourm; it's an interest of mine) we have a phrase, the "POD" or point of divergence. Here, it's Peggy choosing to stay, and so becoming the Super Soldier instead of Steve... hence the Captain Carter in Doctor Strange: Multiverse of Madness.

This is huge fun. Captain America: The First Avenger plays out with Peggy as the hero- allowed to display the Union Flag, for some reason, by Americans of 1943, who would have been somewhat more ambiguous about us.

And it's wonderful. The romance between strong Peggy and War Machine weaking Steve, with a character that wins her heart. The Lovecraftian horror. I love this.

Loki: For All Time. Always

 "Only one person gets free will. The one in charge!"

Wow. This is huge. So suddenly there are branches everywhere, there's an array of Multiverses, and He Who Remains... no, that names a bit of a mouthful; let's give him a one syllable name such as, like, "Kang", because that's blatantly who he is, given his actions and backstory- is dead, but his variants will live on.

Kang is awesome, a deeply clever puppetmaster who is the man behind the curtain at a Citadel at the End of Time, so clever he can break the fourth wall and cheerfully show Loki and Sylvie the script of the scene they're in. He gets to say "We're all villains here". His Multiversal backstory is fascinating. He's eneormously charismatic. Yet his existence offers a horrible vision of free will. It cannot exist, or Multiversal War breaks out. Tyrannical, stutifying order vs. destructive anarchy. As Kang puts it, get rid of the dictator and... well, we all remember Iraq. Must it be either tyranny or Hobbesian chaos? Either way, the die is cast.

The debate, fight, kiss and betrayal between Loki and Sylvie is deeply moving in the end. So is the bitter parting between Mobius and Ravonna... and, indeed, the fact that Loki ends up back at the TVA, with no one knowing who he is.

Unsurprisingly, we get a second season. This is superb telly.

The Sandman: 24/7

 "The trouble with stories is, if you keep them going long enough, they all end in death, don't they?"

I realise that, currently watching the last episodes of Breaking Bad, I'm spoiled for superlative telly, and everything else looks distinctly inferior, pretty much. Yet, by any ordinary standard- although, as far as my quarter century memory can recall, it's reasonably true to the comic- this is a sublime episode of telly.

The premise is simple. John Dee (not that one) has Dream's ruby. And he goes to a diner, for a coffee, surrounded by a handful of perfectly ordinary people. On the surface, they are mundane and everyday, like us all. But scratch beneath the surface- and he does- and, like all of us, they have interior lives rich and as conflicted as any play by Tennessee Williams or Arthur Miller.

Jogn wants an honest world. one without lying, including to ourselves. This leads to terrible violence and self-mutilation. It is hardly a happy world.

Because we need lies. They console us. We need the consolation of lies in this random, godless world. One day each one of us will die, and there is nothing beyond. Who can blame us for choosing not to examine that unsettling fact too closely?

This is sublime telly, quite different from previous episodes. Dream and Dee, wonderfully, are not the stars. We are.

The Green Hornet, Episode 13: Doom of the Underworld

 "My job is finished..."

And so the serial ends... suddenly, within twenty minutes, but with finality. The Hornet rather efficiently foils the plot to blow up the offices of the Sentinel, and then foils the baddies entirely by using cunning to turn them against each other. It's all nicely done, incredibly cliched in the best possible way.

There is comedy, with Jenks and Axford, and Miss Case gets to finally meet her hero and, as we might expect, swoon over him. There is much banter at the end. And yet the end of the racket is unexpectedly brutal and violent, as movie serials can occasionally be.

This is, however, the end to a movie serial of the superior sort. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and shall be bavk for more before long.

Loki: Journey into Mystery

 "Don't die isn't a plan. It's just a general demand of living."

Nice title. I love these subtle, or not so subtle, little nods.

Wow. This is a big, big episodes and I'm not even going to get started on all the hidden little artifacts around the void. We get loads of Lokis, one of which is Richard E. Grant in the original costime by King Kirby himself. The whole thing is enormous fun.

Then we get the simmering romance between Sylvie and Loki. More Miss Minutes, always a good thing. A frigging alligator Loki, one up on Walt Simonson's frog Thor. We get the revelation that the pruned aren't killed; they're sent to a bit of the far future beyond which we cannot see, and where a beast guards something beyond, something which may hold the secrets of the Time Keepers. Wow.

It's not just about the revelations, though, awesome though they are. The relationship between Loki and Sylvie is subtly and beautifully done, alongside the friendship between both of them and the relievingly not-dead Mobius, who will hopefully achieve what he sets out to do.

This is brilliant. So what lies behind the curtain...?

The Sandman: A Hope in Hell

 "I am hope..."

Why does Lucifer not just counter with despair, or nihilism, or some such dreary bollocks? Never mind; I usually tune out suring any but the quirkiest of fight scenes, but this one is so beautifully poetic- and, though I remember the comic book only dimly, I believe it's faithful, more or less. So is the evocative and myth-like scene with Nada, a woman he loves but has sentenced to Hell because he does not forgive her after ten thousand years. This is powerful stuff, like the ancient myths.

Meanewhile, John Dee, cynical, insane and troublingly powerful, meets Rosemary, a damaged yet kind and good woman. Yet this does not comfort us. Those masterful scenes of tension in the car and the petrol station, and his cruel killing of the shoipkeeper, show us he is capable of casual cruelty. So his casual kindness to Rosemary, even if it gives her immunity from harm, is merely a sign of terrible capriciousness. This man is dangerous.

I love the poetic depictiuon of Hell, even if it doesnt quite import the idea from the comic that the punishments of the damned arise from their own subconscious. I love the stoicism of Dream. I love the humanity of Matthew, although he's a crow. This is beautiful telly.

Breaking Bad: Granite State

 "Just so you know, this isn't personal."

Oh my. Where to start? Suddenly everything is going horribly wrong. Walt is still dying of cancer; chemo takes place in less than ideal conditions; he's forced to live in a shack in deepest, darkest New Hampshire (still a better fate than Saul, seemingly, destined for Nebraska, which this foreigner assumes to be the most obscure state in the USA- it's always the pretty much square ones), off grid, starved of company, unable to use his money or even send it to his family. Yes, Flynn is a good lad.

Also, Skyler is doomed. As Saul points out, she knows not where she is, and so she has nothing to trade. It all promises to be, as Walt (not Heisenberg; he even grows his hair), all for nothing.

Except he plans to kill Jack and all of his Nazi mates. My God, I hope so, after the slave labour for poor, despairing Jesse; the swastika tattoos; the callous murder of Andrea in front of Jesse. I'll say this now: Jack and his gang- including dead-eyed, evil Todd- are all going to die, like Walt will. I hope that amoral, cynical bitch Lydia dies too, but I suspect she won't.

And then we get the final betrayal, just when Walt appears to be ready to give himself up, as Elliott and Gretchen insult him on telly. One episode to go. I can't believe it. It will be quite the ride. This is how you do telly as art.This is Dickens. This is Thackeray. This is genius.

The Green Hornet, Episode 12: Panic in the Zoo

 "I got the Hornet..."

I'll get to the episode in a minute- it is the penultimate one, after all- but, yeah, zoos in 1940. This zoo looks, on the one hand, like a lot of fun- rides, stalls and all that good stuff, but on the other hand... yes, it's obviously stock footage, but those poor animals in those horrible cages. The cruelty is obvious. It's all, quite blatantly, also a health and safety nightmare. The past is, sometimes, a very foreign country. And yet we're meant to approve of Britt trying to protect the zoo by not publicising the "jinx". Wow.

This aside... there's nothing to particularly indicate that this a penultimate episode. It's just another instalment- cliffhanger hets resolved, the racket is dealt and so we move on to a different bit of extortion. Interswsting, though, that the baddies should finally realise that silencing the Sentinel may well be in their interests, but not that the connection with the Hornet is as close as we know it to be.

How on Earth are they going to end all this in twenty minutes...?

Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985)

 "You can shovel ****, can't you?

The critics are wrong. This film is a masterpiece, and easily the best of the original Mad Max trilogy. Yes, as good as the first two are, especially the second, this film is truly great. 

Firstly, not that the previous film didn't, but this film utterly owns the post-apocalyptic aesthetic. It looks bloody brilliant, with the deserts of Australia being as much a star as any of the cast. This is also a profoundly Australian film, as are its predecessors. A nuclear holocaust would wipe out all of Europe, North America, and the Soviet Union near as dammit. Australia would survive, even if its civilisation wouldn't.

Ah, civilisation. That's the core of the film, and it's done without didactricism. Take Auntie and, incidentally, while one may not necessarily expect a singer to be worthy of such a role, Tina Turner gives an admirably nuanced performance as Auntie.

She's framed as the baddie, and is certainly hostile to Max. But is she really bad? After all, she made Bartertown, a genuine holdout of civilisation. Yes, it runs on pig manure, but, well, nice metaphor. And, much as I tend to be very libera in matters of justice and Auntie isn't, she hasn't the luxury of living in a civilised, industrial society. Even the sublime John Stuart Mill made an exception for such things. If Auntie hadn't provided the level of civilisation she has, wouldn't society, if that's the word, be quite Hobbesian?

It's an interesting contrast in post-apocalyptic political systems- back to basics- in that the antithesis of Auntie and her harshly enforced civilisation isa bunch of kids with great, poetic dialogue but basically a cargo cult.They get their plane ride; they get their city. But, somehow, I suspect it will be the Aunties of this wrld who ultimately rebuild civilisation. But, admirably, none of this is in any way didactic.

Profound, looks sperb, exciting, and overall just a bloody brilliant film.

Loki: The Nexus Event

"What an incredible seismic narcissist..."

This isan incredible episode, full of twist, turns and big, big reveals along all the timey-wimey stuff, starting with the sad reveal that Sylvie was kidnapped by the TVA when she was just a little girl to... yeah, that ending.

It's still all about character, though. Neither we nor Mobius stop pondering what makes the so-called God of Mischief tick, of whether he trult has fallern in love with his alternate self. Mobius too, who seems to be permanently "pruned" by Ravonna, his best friend, also gets quite the journey here as he tenaciously notes the things that don't add up and realises that Loki, for once, was telling the truth: everyone who works for the TVA is a mind-wiped variant. His death is dignified, yes, but deeply sad.

And then there's the revelation at the end: the "Time Keepers" are just a front. What's really going on? Who really runs the TVA? Whatever, it#s clear that Ravonnais right at the centre. This is getting pretty bloody gripping.

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022)

 "This time it's gonna take more than killing me to kill me."

Well, thgis film blew me away. It's a huge fanwank treat. It's very Sam Raimi indeed. I love its continuation of the whole vibe of magic being really trippy, man, in the MCU, almost as thought it was some king of metaphor or something.

But, although very good, this film isn't great. It doesn't quite have the swagger and smooth greatness of the best Marvel films but- let me stress- this is no great critiscism. Merely being very good indeedcis no crime.

Plus, this film may be fanwank, but it's fanwank of the first degree. Rintrah! Clea at the end! A brief CGI hint of the Living Tribunal! Chthon! Earth 616!

But this is about the full realisation of the Multiverse- Black Bolt! Captain Carter! Reed Richards! Confirmation, for those of my generation, that Monica Rambeau is THE real Captain Marvel. And we have Professor X... played by Patrick Stewart"! This is a blatant tease about the former Fox properties, using the concept of the Multiverse to the full.

Yet this film is very human as well as high concept. We explore, through different realities, Strange's relations with Christine, and his rather lovely fatherly relationship with the orphaned America Chavez, presumably a comics character from after my time.

Yet also, after WandaVision, we meet Wanda... and she's the baddie, plausibly yet tragically: she's a loving parent, able to see her beloved children only through snatched, one dimensional, dreamlike moments which are better than nothing but no replacement for everyday physical parenthood. I get exactly where she's coming from. It means a lot that she does the right thing, in the end, through love of her children.

No, this isn't a great film. But just being bloody good is no crime.

The Sandman: Dream a Little Dream of Me

 "What's the point of you...?"

This is a pivotal episode and, as far as I recall, faithful to the comic. Much of it is set-up. Hence we're introduced to the splendid Patton Oswalt as Matthew the Raven, and we have those incredible scenes between Ethel and John, which are textbook examples of how to do exposition well, culminating in her sacrificing her life (aged 116!) so her son may have the Amulet of Protection, presumably an extended lifespan, and all sorts of powers... so naturally he kills a guard and escapes. He won't do anything bad, right?

We also have Mad Hettie (yay!), a princess marrying a demon footballer, and Meera Syal as a delightfully human vicar.

But, yeah, this is all about Jenna Coleman as a gender-swapped John/Johanna Constantine who, nevertheless, is the character. And yes; Coleman is significantly better than Keanu Reeves in the part. But this is a nice little chacter piece, with a nice and surprising little bond between Constantine and Morpheus. This is good telly.

So, off to Hell. Should be fun...

The Green Hornet, Episode 11: Disaster Rides the Rails

 "Six months? Give me six days!"

It's incredible how close we are to the end. Next episode is the penultimate one.And yet still we have an episode of the racketeers being caught with one racket and moving on to another, with set pieces and car chases to pad things out... yet things are padded out so well. This is so much fun to watch.

Two interesting pounts to note, though. The vote rigging plot is wrapped up so quickly- if only Trump's criminal anticsat trying to steal the 2020 election across the pond could be so easily dealt with- and we move on. This is accomplished through narrative by newspaper front page... and one headline shows the word "armoured" spelled with a "u" as per this side of the Atlantic. Did Americans go through a phase of being less  pernickety about Noah Webster's linguistic diktats in 1940?

The second is that there's a random German baddie, in an American movie serial made in 1940 by an industry in which Jewish men were able to enjoy a rare exercise of power, alongside those in the comics industry. It would be nice to think this was political.

Away from such very weighty matters, though, this is fun. It will be interesting to see if the penultimate episode feels penultimate, though...

Loki: Lamentis-1

 "What part of imminent death confuses you?"

This episode seems to take things in unexpected directions. Just as we seemed to be settling into a status quo of Loki working for the TVA and pursuing the alternate Loki... things take a different turn. And yes, it's just Loki and Sylvie (for that seems to be her name) getting to know each other while an adventure with an apocalypse happens around them, but it's fun, if not as good as its two predecessors.

It annoys me a bit when the episode proudly reveals that Loki is bisexual, and then expects to be congratulated for being so progressive. You know, people have sexual orientations, it's a mundane fact of life and should be shown as such. For a TV series in 2021 to reveal an ageless character is bisexual is routine. I mean, I'm straight, but I imagineif my lifespan was measured in thousands of years I'd at least be some degree of pansexual. So would you. This isn't bravery. It's not saying anything. I'd be impressed if they, I don't know, did an episode giving the finger to the rampant transphobia that seems to be coarsening our society these days.

That aside, though, this is a fun little two hander between Loki and Sylvie, and we get a little titbit about the TVA: all of their employees are variants. Wow. What other secrets do the Time Keepers have? And who is the mysterious Ramona?

The Sandman: Imperfect Hosts

 "He almost never murders me before lunch..."

After a deep and emotional first episode, the second episode feels curiously mythical, and deliberately so. Dream is reminded of his siblings in a way that in turn reminds me of Roger Zelazny's Amber novels, which I love, and so does Neil Gaiman. Yet this masterpiece takes that influence and adds so much.

Dream is questing for his three artifacts which will restore his realm. He seeks cryptic advice from the Fates, advice which I'm sure will define the outline of the season. Yet against him is the Corinthian and the modern Ethel, an art dealer, and her son in his asylum... John Dee. And there's a name with alchemical associations.

Triumphantly, though, we have Cain and Abel, shown surprisingly faithfully to the comic book (as is the whole episode, if I rightly recall) and portrayed superbly by Sanjeev Bhaskar and Asim Chaudhry, whose speech at the end is profoundly moving. As is the sacrifice of poor little Gregory, a faithful pet put down.

Are we all pets to Morpheus, to e put down when needed? This is a fascinating protagonist, and a lushly superb, if short, bit of telly.

Breaking Bad: Ozymandias

 "What the hell is wrong with you? We're family!"

Having started my blog on this brutal and almost perfect piece of television, about how a man once lord of all he surveys who finds it all crumble to dust among the sands, with the above quote, I'll also now do something unusual and quote in full the eponymous poem from Percy Bysshe "the missus wrote Frankenstein" Shelley:

"I met a traveller from an antique land,

Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;

And on the pedestal, these words appear:

My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;

Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.” 

It's all so very apt, is it not?

It all falls apart. We begin with an opening scene from the old days, when Jesse and Walt were friends and Heisenberg was not a thing. But the ghosts of the past fade away to be replaced by the intensity of the present, as Walt- not Heisenberg, perhaps for the last time- pleads for Hank's life, yet Hank is the alpha male even in death, as Walt is humiliated by Jack and his gang of white supremacist scum. He is no longer the kingpin, forced to run away. The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Things get even more intense as Marie goes on the warpath, thinking Hank has Walt just where he ewant him... and forces Marie to tell Flynn the truth, in deeply painful scenes. Flynn's reaction- like R.J. Mitte's acting- is very real. He's just a teenage boy, young and naive. His parents are not who he thought they were, and his world falls apart. The lone and level sands stretch far away.

And then we have the intensity of the final scenes, the altercation between Walt and Skyler with a knife as an appalled Flynn calls the police on his father. And Walt's phone call to Skyler- with police listening in- is classic abusive spouse. He's lost the plot- and helped Skyler inadvertently by making her collaboration seem like coercive control.

Then there's Jesse, having a very bad day. He dodges being killed only to be forced to work as a meth slave to stop his girlfriend and stepson being killed. Ouch.

Everything has changed. No one is safe. Nothing is sacred. Two episodes left. Walt has lost everything, and even been rejected by his baby daughter. Ouch. As a dad, this hits home.

The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Bedazzled (1967)

 "Good evening. I couldn't help noticing that you were making an unsuccessful suicide bid."

Peter Cook, possibly the funniest man who ever lived, had a glorious, if not always consistent, career. His personal problems, particularly with too much booze, meant he was never quite as prolific as we, his fans, would have liked. But everything he did touch turned to comedy gold.

Except, largely, in the sphere of cinema. It's a huge relief, then, that Bedazzled is one film at least (The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer is another) in which he gets the starring role and gets to showcase his talents playing the Devil, no less.

This is almost, but not quite, a portmaneau comedy in which Dudey Moore gets given seven wishes by the delightfully slippery Satan in which he tries to find happiness with the woman he loves, but there's always a devilishly clever catch that ruins everything. Yes, some material is recycled from sketches from Not Only... But Also, but who cares? Certainly not the BBC, who bloody junked most of it. And I don't care how gratuitous the Raquel Welch cameo may be, or how cheeky it may be to give her such high billing for five minutes.

The dialogue sparkles with wit and hilarity, and the central dynamic of Pete 'n' Dud shines throughout. This is one of the real greats of comedy cinema- too coherent to be a portmanteau, cleverly and hilariously scripted, well made and cinematic in scope while remembering that its purpose is first and foremost to be very, very funny. And it bloody well is.

Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021)

 "Gods don't have to choose. We take."

SPOILERS.

I've been waiting to see this film for a while, and it's a relief to have finally seen it. It is, after all, clearly quite big in being the first film (although Loki got there first, I believe) to establish ther multiverse. And it's bloody good.

For a film that literally links all the Sony Spider-Men and baddies to the MCU, quite an undertaking, this is a deeply witty and enjoyable film, chock full of actors, although they may have aged a bit. Alfred Molina has aged somewhat, but that's mitigated by the reaction of Peter, MJ and Ned to the name "Otto Octavius". Yet Jamie Foxx and Willem Defoe are awesome in their own right.

Tobey Maguire, though, and Andrew Garfield, deserve as much praise as Tom Holland and- indeed- Benedict Cumberbatch, who has conceded the title of Sorcerer Supreme to Wong by means of being dead for five years. That'll do it.

Despite the multiversal shenanigans, though, this is all about the characters. Spidey's reaction to May's death is heartbreaking, but not as heartbreaking as the fact that the conclusion has to revolve around everyone- including MJ- forgetting Peter. Ouch.

Yet, alongside the tragedy, and the blealk ending of everyone forgetting who Peter ids, threre's humour, which is very Spider-Man. And, while the late Aunt May is much nicer and much more relatable than in the comics, there's also J. Jonah Jameson, played superbly by J.K. Simmons, being a total ***. He's the real villain.

Yes, this probably won't stand up well to repeated viewings. But I love it.

All this and Matt Murdoch. So all them series are canon?

The Sandman: Sleep of the Just

 "We begin in the waking world, which humanity insists on calling the real world..."

For once I manage to blog the first episode of a hot new streaming serial on the day of its release- yay me. Even better, it's Sandman. I haven't read all of the sixty-odd issues of Neil Gaiman's late '80s masterpiece, thick with meaning, literary allusion and proper '80s goth aesthetic, but I've read enough of the early issues to cover all of this first season which, I understand, covers the first two arcs. And it does so magnificently. Gaiman has a previous triumph under his belt in terms of transferring a print masterpiece to screen magnigicently with Good Omens. He's only bloody gone and done it again.

This first episode looks sumptuous, and the casting is triumphant. Tom Sturridge seems born to play Dream, helmet perfectly realised. Charles Dance as the Magus is a captivating villain, for Dream literally so. I'm not sure the chronology quite works (Dream is captured in 1916 when young Alex is a child, but Alex and his partner Paul are both still alive when Dream is (quite magnificently) freed after "more than a century" of captivity?), but the epic tale of Dream's capture and eventual escape is gripping telly, not only because of the concepts but the very real characters and their nicely drawn relationships- Rodericks cruelty to second son Alex after his first son dies at Gallipolli, or Ethel's fury towards the man who dares presume to decide whether or not she will keep her baby.

The Corinthian is a deeply disturbing villain, an escaped nightmare who seems to take the eyes of his victims, but many of these characters we shall see grow and grow in this questlike, epic and- yes- dreamlike piece of brilliance.

The Green Hornet, Episode 10: Bullets and Ballots

 "They are repeaters!"

Another episode and, after briefly pausing to resolve the cliffhanger, another racket: this time stuffing ballot boxes in order to rig an election, just like Donald Trump and his fellow vote riggers in today's USA, although their methods are of course quite different, more insidious, and more blaantly racist. Indeed it is, er, the land of the free.

This vote rigging, though, is very 1940, with the "repeaters" (very odd word, but Britt uses it in a newspaper headline so presumably it was current) driving around in cars with their hats and their guns, like a vote rigging Al Capone. It's all good fun.

And then the Green Hornet is driving a long a cliff edge and is blown off it. Bet they re-edit that a bit next episode.

This is all, as ever, just a succession of plotless set pieces. But what set pieces they are...

Pistol- Track 6: Who Killed Bambi?"

 "We'll always have Huddersfield..."

It's perfect, after all the distressing events of the episode, to finish with the Pistols' benefit gig, on Christmas Day 1977, for the children of desperate striking firefighters. Despite all else that happens, it's a moment of strange innocence, with even Sid being kind to children and John showing his moral side, much like his refusal to have anything to do with that *** Ronnie Biggs.

All else is tragedy. Sid and Nancy, two damaged and co-dependent kids who were just kids, really, meet their horribly tragic demises. Malcolm shows himself to be an inhuman ***, both ij the opening scene and in how his cynical manipularion leads to such tragedy. Punk has no need for svengalis: it's about how ANYONE, with just three chords, can write good songs, rule the world and mean something far more significant than all that Situationist fatuosity.

It's right, and meaningful, that Sid's death should be counterbalanced by Chrissie's deserved success. It's also nice to have that well-written final conversation between Steve- the protagonist here- and John, about the cynicism of Malcolm and how John need not bear that burden of all that stupid Catholic guilt about Sid.

Malcolm is the true villain here.Should Hell somehow exist, let him rot in it. Sid and Nancy (Rockets Redglare killed her) were such children. They're all so bloody young. Heroin and cutting yourself is not rock 'n' roll.

The Pistols gave us such incredible music, musi that I love. But at what price? And how many died for it? Is art worth the suffering?

That is, I suppose, the perennial question. We are, I hope, well past the age of glamourising death and mental illness in the name of rock 'n' roll. But we can't deny its worth as art. Still, is it worth it?

Danny Boyle, you have created a serious work of art from a subject matter that needed it. Thank you.

Breaking Bad: To'hajilee

 "Don't drink and drive. But, if you do, call me."

Wow. This is one of the most intricately plotted episodes of television I've ever seen, with all the interlocking pieces of the elegantly structured plot balanced out perfectly as we see the intertwining of two intertwining yet opposing plans- one from Walt, the other from Hank and Jesse- in a zero sum game in which they try and destroy each other...

Yet we end with a chaotic shootout which neither side wanted and neither side can control, ending in the ultimate cliffhanger. Will Hank survive? His emotional last phone call to Marie is ominous. There's no status quo now. No one is safe. Walt is dying, it's just a question of how soon, and desperate. And the acting is, of course, as superlative as the writing (and directing, much artier this week), with Cranston, Paul and Norris worthy of particularly high praise.

Yet there are also signs of things breaking down for poor Lydia without Walt, whose absence is crashing the quality of meth with uneducated criminals taking the place of a first class chemist. Things fall apart everywhere. No centre, it seems, can hold. The last fifteen minutes, certainly, show is that we are now approaching the end, and anything can happen.

Breaking Bad is better than ever. Also, it's very nearly over...

Loki: The Variant

 "Luckily, he believes in himself enough for both of us..."

This second episode has me fascinated. The whole concept of this limited series is suoerb. We take a variant Loki from an already-established divergent timeline and plonk him into the TVA, a concept of Walt Simonson's where everyone (just Owen Wilson here) looks just like the late Mark Gruenwald, which is so well-established here, as a 1960s office environment rather less glamorous than Mad Men.

Thus we have philosophical, timey-wimey issues of coolness. We get fascinating, abstracxt conversations between Loki and Mobius about predestination and free will. We, like Loki, are left wondering what is the bacstory behind the Time Keepersa. Even more, we non-Amewricans are left wondering about, like, what the hell is this Rennaissance Fayre insanity?

But it's all about the variant, a veraion of Loki who seems badass. And Loki's own mor=tives. What are they? Everybody's playing thirty-seven dimensional chess, and I love it.

Also, Loki is pretty damn good at paperwork!

Dad's Army (1971)

 "And I must ask you to keep your hands off my privates...".

Obviously, this film isn't ever going to be as funny as the TV programme, which I'll prpbably never blog, fuzzy thoiugh my principle of never blogging sitcoms may be. Films, being directed differently and, in this era, on film instead of video, are not directed for comic effect in the same way as a contemporary sitcom episode.

Despite this, the film is bloody funny.

A lot of this is, of course, down to all the familiar characters, well-established by 1971. The opening scenes establish this so well, as Mainwaring walks to the bank in the morning and greets the townsfolk.

It's amazing to ponder that 1971 was fifty-one years ago, and that old people at that time- such as John Laurie and Arnold Ridley- would have been born in the century of Victoria. The cast is superb, as much as the script, as ever with Dad's Army, is the best kind of farce, entirely based on well-developed character.

Yet this is, too, a fascinating historical document, chronicling the events of 1940 through ordinary people. And the ending- where Mainwaring is a genuine, bona fide hero- is both superb and something we'd never see on telly. Mainwaring may be a pompous ass, but he's no coward and, indeed, as brave as any western hero. Such is the complexity of life.

I love the constant comical friction with Bernard Archard's general. I love that this is a rather well done origin story. I love the whole bloody thing. Cinematic versions of sitcoms didn't often succeed in this era. But this certainly does.

The Green Hornet, Episode 9: The Hornet Trapped

 "You're a rotten shot, Michael!"

And so we continue, seemingly no closer to the end, but this time with the focus not so much on the racketeers- although Lynch is killed, after leaving evidence in a waste paper basket after drawing a picture of a waste paper basket for Britt Reid to fing, which, er, makes no sense- but on the continuing hunt for the Hornet.

And so we end up with an exciting but fast conclusion, following a strangely slow episode,in which everyone- including Reid!- sets out to find the Hornet. It's all very exciting, and in no well feels like the pllot doggy-paddling it assuredly is at this point because the set pieces, this being a movie serial, remain splendid.

This is also a rare glimpse into how Britt Reid must get very few hours sleep per night, with his double life. He ought towatch it. Thatcher famously needed only four hours per night, and I understand this is considered the reason for her dementia. Lack of sleep in healthy neither for superheroes nor milk snatchers.

The Green Hornet, Episode 8: Dead or Alive

 "They made me blame it on you!"

This is more of the same, naturally, and another racket: tuis time a dry cleaning protection racket. There are more set pieces and, naturally, the plot won't progress until we get much closer to the end.

There's a twist, though, with the Green Hornet, always considered a criminal, this time being crudely framed for murder and with no one doubting his guilt. Both the police- really, this time- and the racketeers are after him. I hope this gets carried forward.

Gordon Jones really is excellent, his stentorian tones doing the trick very well indeed both as Britt Reid and the Hornet. It has to be said, too, that the acting, like everything, is very much above average for a movie serial.

We end, of course, with a random explosion. What else?

The Boys: The Instant White-Hot Wild

 "My cake hole will remain open!"

This is such a The Boys season finale. There's lots of fighting. There's lots of characters, and lots of character development. So much happens. Deep breath.

Homelander wins, the bastard. He has his son, and ends up as pretty much openly fascist. Billy Burcher loses, with a yrest to live after using Temp V, and having turned against Soldier Boy to save the son who isn't even his son by blood but by love- the opposite of Soldier Boy and Homelander, both products of a cycle of abuse, that seems to be spreading to Ryan. The look on his face at the Trump-Nazi rally is chilling.

Incidentally, any Americans reading this who support Trump, or the Republican party, you're not conservatives, you're Nazis, ok? Kindly *** yourselves. Thank you.

Maevew, the only supe (Annie aside, and yes; they're both women) not to be corrupted by her powers, gets a heroic death and gets to live, sans powers if sadly also sans eye, but her ex is back with her. I think, overall, she has her well-deserved happiness.

The Deep is... ever more tragic and pathetic. MM is a decent man worthy of respect, who loves his daughter and shows the dad he can be, a shining ecxample to all of us who love our little girls so much it hurts. Kimiko and Frenchie are the cutest couple ever. And Annie gets a supremely satisfying ending, loved and worshipped by Hughie and discarding her costume to join the Boys.

And yeah, Black Noir. His death. As Oscar Wilde said of Little Nell, you'd need a heart of stone not to laugh.

Pistol- Track 5: Nancy and Sid

 "This isn't love. This is appetite. They'll eat him."

And suddenly it all steps upma gear, intothe oenultimate act of what is ultimately a tragedy. Both Sid and Nancy- who we meet for the first time, played truly superbly by Emma Appleton- are, in a way, naive, innocent and so, so young. We get hints of how Nancy has never known love or kindness, of her schizophrenia. We learn that Sid was given some heroin as a birthday present by his mother at fourteen. Wow. Neither of them stand any chance whatsoever. They're co-dependent, self-destructive and doomed to die stupidly young. None of this is ***ing romantic, and rightly isn't played as such. 

Meanwhile, the drama of the Sex Pistols continues, with all Danny Boyle's usual touches of '70s context. The '77 Jubilee seems much scarier than the one last gone, far more conformist. Richard Branson looks so bloody young. And at the centre of it all is everyman Steve, whose stepdad is still a child molesting ***, and who has come from nothing to writing a Number One single.

Then there's Chrissie- a nice person, a grown-up, who bonds with Nancy despite herself. Who realises she needs to develop her talent. Yet Steve has faith in her. The understated love between the two of them is, perhaps, more real than that of Nancy and Sid, the poor kids. And the media are total ***s throughout, as they were in real life.

This is more than good. It's tastefully provocative, and threads the needle very well. It tells the truth; that these were two young victims who fell through the cracks of a society without an adequate safety net. God help their equivalents today.

Breaking Bad: Rabid Dog

 "For three hours straight, all he talked about was something called Babylon 5..."

So this is it. The die is cast. From now on, all is in flux and there is no status quo. This is a supremely well-acted, written and directed piece of television, from Bryan Cranston's extraordinary "bad lying" acting to the shots of Jesse approaching Walt at the end.

Obviously, this episode is all about two things: Jesse turning against Walt and agreeing to cooperate fully with Hank (I'm glad he finally confides in Gomie), and Walt coming to terms with the necessity of killing Jesse. The dynamic between Jesse and Hank is fascinating.And it's ironic that the plan to have Jesse with a wire would have worked if not for his paranoia; it's only his angry phone call to Walt that makes Walt decide to kill him.

It's fascinating seeing Walt being advised to kill Jesse, not only by Seventies Porn Saul but by Skyler, who really crosses a line at this point. This resectable suburban wife encourages her husband to commit murder; her fall is complete.

Then there's the continuing naive faith of Flynn... surely his illusions will soon be brutally shattered? And the angst of Betsy, who may have said too much to her shrink. 

Nothing is safe. Anything can happen. Telly doesn't get much better than this.

Loki: Glorious Purpose

 "What's a fish?"

"How do you not know what a fish is?"

This  is an extremely promising start: indeed the finest opening episode to any Marvel TV series yet. It's far from an obvious idea to pair Loki with the semi-obscure Time Variance Authority, a nice little semi-satirical creation of Walt Simonson, but it really, really works.

The interrogation scene by Mobius, while its point is as yet unclear, is an excellent opportinuty to stop, explore and indeed psychoanalyse the character of Loki, adding depth to him as a person. The moment when he gives up on escaping because he realises he's temprally homeless is deeply affecting.

Yet it's the concept of the TVA that fascinates. It raises all sorts of philosophical questions of predestination and free will. It also introduces us to the concept of the multiverse, and that an authority exists- its origins rather murky- to ensure there is only one "sacred" timeline. The '60s-'70s office style is delightful, as is the fun little exposition video. The concepts, the humour and the characterisation are all superb. And I'm full of questions about the background to the Multiverse and the TVA.

More please.

Marvel and Housekeeping

 I’m slowly catching up with the MCU films. However, this calls for a bit of a rethink on my blogging my way through the various Marvel telly series. Up until now my plan had been to plough through all of the former Netflix shows (currently just finished the first season of Luke Cage) before catching up with the rapidly proliferating series on Disney Plus, where I’ve seen nothing since The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.

Now that I’m nearly caught up with the movies, though, I’ll change my approach, as the Disney Plus series will surely tie in. So I’ll marathon the Disney Plus Marvel stuff and then return to the former Netflix series. 

Eternals (2021)

 "I thought we were heroes. Turns out we're the bad guys."

This is, I can't deny, the worst MCU film up until this point, and quite a disappointment. One may be tempted to blame it on the great Jack Kirby. Genius though he was, his genius had left the building, and the concept of the Eternals and Deviants was developed by him in a limited series at a point when his mojo was a thing of the past.

Other creators integrated this cuckoo into the Marvel Universe in creative ways, but a cuckoo it remains. So there we have the original sin of the concept, cool thouth the Celestials are- and the realisation of Erishem.

The effects and visuals are cool. So is the direction, in a scene to scene sense. The film looks good. It's also an intriguing and respectful treatment of the mythos, with deviants, the Uni-Mind, and characters like Sersi, Ikaris, Sprite, Makkari and Gilgamesh all well treated.The Mahd Wiri (from Bob Harras' run on Avengers?) is well handled with Thena. And the bid reveal about the Celestials' plot- to destroy all life on Earth but to do so in the aid of seeding life elsewhere- is presumsbly nicked off of a comic after my time, butb is cool.

But... it doesn't flow. Perhaps it's because the main stars are character actors who don't suit such big roles. Perhaps the script underwhelms. Perhaps it's because the second post-credits sequence has some pop star playing Starfox, although Pip the Troll is cool.

But it's probably Kirby. And this is the least good MCU film.

Breaking Bad: Confessions

 "Goodbye, Mr Jesse Pinkman. Hello, Mr Credit to Society."

You have to hand it to this episode. I mean, I might as well just stop describing individual episodes of Breaking Bad as superlative, as you can pretty much take that for granted. But this particular episode manages to be basically functional, putting pieces in place for the next act, and therefore traditionally requiring a slight dip in quality.

Hah! No such thing happens.

The episode centres around Walt's incredible confession, a devilishy clever work of cleverness that weaves together the facts that we've all seen over the last few seasons in a way that implicates Hank. It's a tour de force of both writing and acting. Walt- no, Heisenberg, is as vgood an actor as Bryan Cranston here. There is no higher praise.

Yet Aaron Paul is no less superlative in his performance. The scene in the desert where, yet again, Jesse shows that he may be undereducated but he's bloody clevee, something the snobbish Walt will never realise. It's unsurprising that he refuses to cooperate with a secretive Hank, himself at the start of another descent into obsessive self-destructiveness, but less surprising that, as soon as he puts two and five together with the ricin (he's wrong, but sort of right,,,), he turms against Walt, in a very fiery way. Will he now cooperate with Hank.

This very much fees like the beginning of the end.

And there are stiull subtleties to mention. Walt manipulating his own son, the poor boy. Marie's alienation from obsessive Hank. Skyler's dead eyes. Todd muscling in on the meth trade.

This is soooo good. That is all.

Pistol- Track 4: Pretty Vaaay****

 "What a ***ing rotter!"

This is, I suppose, the pivotal episode. It has all the seminal early TV appearances, starting with Tont Wilson and incorporating a full recording of the Bill Grundy car crash- and, in the shockingly violent reactions of violent thugs towards John and others just for swearing, we see hoew in many ways- if not in terms of the Welfare State- society has, thankfully, improved since the '70s.

It's wonderful to see things through the eyes of two excited Huddersfield teenage girls, who make their way to London to see the Pistols but end up exploited- much, it becomes increasingly clear, as are the band, by Malcolm, who creams away the profits and gets cold feet after the Grundy interview. The scene where he and Vivienne row- she, at this point, long before the damehood, is a true revolutionary artist who has not sold out, whereas the closest Malcolm comes to actual revolution is poking at an asbestos-ridden roof, despite being warned not to, that would kill him thirty-four years later. Yes, really.

On the other hand, it's Vivienne (ably abetted by a rather awesome Jordan) who exploits "the Huddersfields", so...

We also see the close friendship between John and Sid, the increasingly comfortable relationship (of casual sex and serious guitar tuition) betweewn Steve and Chrissie, and the increasing alienation of Glen, pushed out of the band, essentially because of Steve's class-related inferiority complex.

Things are speeding up. This is bloody brilliant. I'm loving it.

The Green Hornet, Episode 7: Bridge of Disaster

 "Where will we go now?"

Yet again we have a similar variation of the racketerring plot we've had throughout, including truckers. There's more sabotaged brakes. There's more corporate intrigue.There's another murder, the kind of locked room mystery where there isn't much mystery. There's a cliffhanger that's par for the course as our heroes, in a truck, traverse a bridge that proceeds to fall into an abyss.

It's a sausage machine. This episode is yet another sausage. 

Thing is, though, yet again, that descibes pretty much all movie serials. And it's so much not the point. But, inyterestingly, it's usually the set pieces that make each episode stand out. But you can tellthis is a superior episode of va superior serial as this is not the case. This is all about intrigue and, unusually, there's relatively litte action- but it works.

That's a tribute not only to the script but the charismatic performance of Gordon Jones. 

Movie serials are... well, what they are. But the best ones, like this, fascinate.

Deathstalker II (1987)

 "Ordinarily, I don't mind seeing a woman get a good beating, if she deserves it..."

Well, then. This line is said by the hero five minutes in. And there's plenty more of this little light outtrageous sexism throughout. 1987, much though it may seem like yesterday to some of us, was a longer time ago than we think.

It's rare, although not so rare as often thought, for a sequel to be better than the original. Some, wrongly, put the admittedly superlative The Godfather: Part II in this category, but The Godfather is superior by some considerable margin. So Deathstalker II, I suppose, manages to be better than The Godfather: Part II in one sense, on a technicality. Yes, I did indeed actually say that.

This really is superior to the original, though, despite the entirely new cast and the fact it could very easily just have been an original film. Much more than the original, it knows it's rubbish, and characters constantly break the fourth wall to say so. Conan gets a mention, cheerfully accepting this is a total rip-off. There's a pointless tribute to Poe's The Pit and the Pendulum and Goldfinger simultaneously. There's a very silly boxing match. There are massive historical inaccuracies (apparently, Genghis Khan and Ivan the Terrible are alive at the same time...) which are cheerfully lampshaded. 

The whole thing is so very, very silly, and played with just the right tone by a cast who know exactly what sort of movie they're in. This is high camp, not low camp. And I love it.

Blade: Trinity (2004)

 "Sooner or later, the thirst always wins."

So Blade is back. And now it's 2004, well into the era of Marvel superhero films that Blade pioneered. So what do we get for my most recent unwatched Marvel film?

But well, this is a very flawed film, if not an awful one. It tells us two things. Firstly, Wesley Snipes, while an effective '90s action film actor, is... well, washed up by this point. There's something very off about his performance.

Yet this is, perhaps, partly due to the lacklustre performances of everyone in this film. Kris Kristofferson is oddly wooden, too. Even Ryan Reynolds isn't firing on all cylinders. And, if the stars are beneath their usual standard, we must blame the director.

Interestingly, though, the script- by David S. Goyer- is perfectly good. It's just that it's badly directed- also by David S. Goyer. The man can write, as we've seen countless times. He just can't direct. He really can't. This is all very music video, something very popular at the time. Proper cinema it is not, despite the many well-conceived fight scenes.

And that's interesting, isn't it? The script is perfectly good. The concept is epic, Blade versus Dracula (whose Sumerian origin here is weird, like Vlad Dracul never existed), with a rather fun Hannibal King, Jessica Biel as a somewhat cool kind of female Hawkeye, and lots of well-written fight scenes thsat sort of fail in the execution and- especially- the cinematography. A good script, sadly, doth not equal a good film.

The Boys: Here Comes a Candle to Light You to Bed

 "Frenchie, are you high?"

"Well, that goes without saying!"

Well- SPOILER alert- that's quite the ending; Homelander, fast on the way to being discredited by Annie's media-savvy exp.loitation of the right-wing extremist killer's incredible thickness, learns that Soldier Boy- who never, in fact, fought in the Second World War; it was all propaganda- is the Darth to his Luke. Dumf dumf dumf. Well then.

Then we have the beautiful, beautiful romance between Kimiko, newly empowered out of love for him, and Frenchie. Yeah, he's going to die next episode, isn't he? It is the finale, after all.

There's so much more, though. Billy's past, and his demons surrounding Lennie, and a character whose powers are to make you have horrible nightmares until you die of dehydration. Urrrgh. This shows us his guilt about Lennie (his suicide...damn!), about Becca, about surrogate son Hughie... who he is prepare4d to allow to die of Compound V lesions for the sake of killing Homelander (will he die?). Wow.

Then there's the delicious, er, threesome scene between the Deep, his wife and an octopus. A-Train waking up with the transplanted heart of a racist wanker. There's the revelation of what has happened to poor, vengeful Maeve. There's poor MM, cuckolded by an absolute wanker.  

Most of all, threre's Black Noir, the cartoon animals, and the revelations of what happened to psycho stoner poser Soldier Boy.

This programme is one of the best things on telly. Sod it; Stranger Things isn't on any more. It's THE best thing on telly.

Breaking Bad: Buried

 "We are here to do a job, not channel Scrooge McDuck!"

This is it, then. The final stretch of the final act begins. Jesse's very depressed, dropping millions of dollars around while spinning around, on his back, on a roundabout. Symbolic much? Also, we see how bloody cold Lydia is as he has a load of meth underlings slaughtered purely because their substandard cooking is harming the bottom line... and then not wanting to see the bodies of the men she's just killed as the ever-gentlemanly sociopath Tom guides her gently through.

But this episode is mainly about the reverberations caused by the now-open war between Walt and Hank- although Walt doesn't wank to send Hank to "Belize". Yet. But it's 3-D chess, as Hank tries to turn Skyler without- yet- realising how exposed she s. Marie is not so naive, and the scene between the two sisters is extraordinary.

Everyone is exposed, though, and Walt's money isn't the only thing that gets buried in ths episode. Walt, his cancer returning, says in a moment of weakness that he'll take the fall if Skyler can use the money to support their kids... but that's not how it works. Meanwhile, for Hank, he needs evidence. He can'tjust tell the DEA- and he's right: the moment it's known that Heisenberg is his brother-in-law, he's an ex-cop. Yet saying nothing potentially exposes him to prosecution too...

The rest of the season looks to be absolutely gipping. This is first class, tension-filled, perfectly shot character drama.

Pistol- Track 3: Bodies

 "We're not into music. We're into chaos."

We should perhaps remember, three episodes in, that this is based on Steve Jones' autobiography, that it is, inevitably, focused on Steve, with him as the star. John Lydon doesn't like it, quite famously. And, while we may not like him these days because of his apparent support for Trumpian fascism, we should remember that he's always been fond of saying shocking stuff for the sake of it, what he says isn't necessarily what he means, and he may not be mentally all that well at the moment. His wife is very ill and he cares for her. So let's not make assumptions.

Anson Boon, incidentally, is superb as John. He brings out the mannerisms and the menace, yes. But threre's also the kind and, well, gentlemanly approach to Pauline. Just as revealing, too, is the saga of Chrissie Hynde's desperate attempts to get married purely for a visa. She's more upset than she thinks, for a "fake marriage"; when Steve spurns her, she likes him more than she admits. Yet John cheerily agrees to marry her for a laugh, only to back out when an upset Nick Kent arrives, because feelings are not a joke. Beneath everything, he has a heart. He's vulnerable.

And so is Steve himself. He's very sensitive about his illiteracy, and nice deep down, despite yielding to temptation with Pauline. But Pauline- the inspiration behind Bodies, not the anti-abortion song that right-wing morons think it is- is the character we feel most sorry for. Raped, institutionalied, carrying an aborted foetus in a bag to gigs, loving it when Johnny writes a song about her... that's real life.

The politics of punk is, of course, an interesting subject. Malcolm has his trite situationism.Vivienne has her aimless anti-authority, taboo-busting passion, hating bigotry but not in favour of anything. Everyone hates hippies. It's not explicitly right-wing but, well, I think it has its place in the history of Thatcherism. Then again, so do hippies. Their individualism is not necessarily a left-wing thing.

Nevertheless, this a wonderfully textured bit of telly. Reginald Bosanquet in Sex, Maisie Williams as Jordan, the Bromley Contingent in full force.. I absolutely love this.

Luke Cage: You Know My Steez

 "Most of these guys wear spandex. Who would have thought a black man in a hoodie would be a hero."

And so- later than expected, due to so much current television absolutely having to be blogged in such a short space of time (Stranger Things; Obi-Wan Kenobi; The Boys; and now Pistol)- we conclude the first season of Luke Cage in my everlasting quest to complete the formerly Netflix Marvel stuff before turning to the more recent series on Disney Plus.

This series has been superb. Much as there is some truth to the criticism of a mid-season lull after Stokes is killed, this is superb telly. The fight between Luke and Diamondback (using his suit from the comics!) is epic superhero set piece, chreographed like- and echoing flashbacks of- a boxing match. 

The goodies don't win; Mariah and Shades get off, while Luke is taken to prison in Georgia despite being cleared of his "crimes" in Harlem. And yet this is far from depressing viewing, and not only because Bob finds the folder which will presumably establish Luke's innocence; indeed, narratively, it has to. So we can bask in Luke's nobility- and nobility he has; this gent would fit in as a Knight of the Round Table- as he's taken back to Seaview, yet with a note of hope.

Because this episode makes clear that Luke has the adoration of all of Harlem including its admiring police deparment. And he gets a very meaningful snog from Claire, who finally lets slip her real feelings.

There's more; Misty struggles with the failure of the system todeliver justice as Candace is murdered and Mariah walks free. The world is not perfect, and that is, perhaps, while superheroes are necessary- a theme of all these Netfix Marvel shows. Yet there is hope. There are good people like Luke, Claire and Misty. The world is not beyond redemption.

I shall now catch up a bit with my current telly rotation, and Breakng Bad too, before Iron Fist joins The Green Hornet in my regular rotation.

Pistol- Track 2: Rotten

 "Come see us play. We're awful."

This is the episode where it all comes together. Steve learns guitar- in four days, with loads of speed- and we meet Johnny Rotten, played superbly by Anson Boon in a performance which perfectly encapsulates both Rotten's unique mannerisms and the deep, vulnerable unhappiness beneath. We also get more superlative performances from Thomas Brodie-Sangster as a deliciously amoral and pretentious Malcolm McLaren, the pseud who somehow ends up as the alpha male. 

Yet there is also Chrissie Hynde, struggling with the incredible levels of sexism in the music industry. And there's a welcome focus on Jordan, who has sadly died recently, and her awesome train journey to work shocking busybodies with her looks and showing us how stultifyingly conformist the British '70s were, even if the Welfare State also made it in many ways better than today. There are always swings and roundabouts.

We are efficiently introduced to Sid Vicious- seemingly a nice young man at this point- and the tensions with Glen Matlock are already apparent. The whole thing, once more, is gloriously shot with lots of creative references to '70s pop culture, and the Pistols' legendary first gig in November 1975 is truly awesome.

This shows us in no uncertain terms how extraordinary these events were- how four such lads could end up so famous, and how a povery- and abuse-stricken yet decent everyman like Steve Jones could experience such a trajectory. This is excellent stuff.

Stranger Things: Season 4, Chapter 9- The Piggyback

 "I piggybacked from a pizza dough freezer..."

Ooh. This was quite the finale. And I've got to write about it now.

Essentially, the writing was first class, despite the perhaps understandable plot armour for the kids and main characters; many of us guessed many episodes ago which character was going to die. Yet, this aside, the writing is flawless, magisterial, not only tying all the ends up but giving us so many very real character moments. Yes, the length is insane for a television episode. Yet every second is earned. There is zero padding. And the direction, cinematography, acting, sets, design are all superlative. All this and we get a splendid rendition of"Master of Puppets" too. Not only that, but we close with Siouxie and the Banshees and "Spellbound". This is the '80s' best self.

Let's talk about Eddie. I love the man: he's a teenager at school, a metalhead, he runs a D&D campaign, he may have smoked slightly naughty substances on occasion. He's basically me, a decade earlier and several tgousand miles to the west. Yet he comes from a place of grinding poverty; we certainly don't have trailer parks in the UK, we have a (rapidly disintegrating and evilly Kafkaesque) Welfare State instead. It's noble. Kids like Eddie should be in art school and in a band. Alas, he lives in Indiana.

Yet, cool and awesome though he is, he has a tragic flaw: he deals in drugs, not just weed but the hard stuff. This is what gives the Duffer Brothers permission to kill him. Yet, as he's awesome, he dies a hero. He's like the soldier who worries he might let the side down and fail to be brave, because he's scatred. Yet it's almost a cliche that such characters always end up heroes. Fear isn't cowardice. One has to feel fear for bravery to have meaning. Eddie dies a hero. All his sins are expunged. Those who hate him can **** off. And yes.Dustin's speech to his dad is beautiful.

Let's talk about Max, who is so very brave, and who is hopefully not dead, and will wake up. She faces her fears, her very deep fears, and acknowledges her very human and very understandable character flaws. Sadie Sink's acting is incredible... as is that of Caleb McLaughlin as a heroic and heartbroken Lucas, who concludes his own character arc by rejecting popularily in favour of geeky realness. Good for him. Top bloke.

And let us talk about the beautiful love between Joyce and Hopper. Between Eleven and Mike. Between Dustin and Eddie. Between brothers Jonathan and Will. These characters are all real and human, despite the CGS and the otherworldly awesomeness. All of them, including Yuri, who finds some decency at the end.

This season was comprised of insanely long episodes. Yet it deserved that. This is fine, fine telly.

Jackie Brown (1997)

 "I think it's a gun pressed against your dick..."

It's somewhat embarrasing that there are any Quentin Tarantino films I haven't seen, quite frankly, This is the earliest, and I'm so glad I crossed it offmy list. I mean, it's not even one of the more famous Tarantino films, but that matters not. It's a straightforward, yet also complex, heist movie with few bells and whistles of Tarantino's usual structural stuff. But it's interesting to see him restraining himself. This film is superb.

The cast is, of course, magnificent. Pam Grier stars, wonderfully, in a film that is not a B movie, and shoes us her sheer class in a highlight of her career. Given a first class film, she shines. If only she'd been given more. She's a forty-something black woman starring in a big Hollywood movie, too. That's embarrassingly rare, and I bet Miramax (friends of a rapist) had representations. I'm sure any one- or two-fingered gesture would fit nicely here.

Yet Samuel L. Jackson is also oiutstanding as Ordell, a clever, gun-running chap whose best line (about guns and killing, of course) cannot be used at the top of this blog post because swear words are a thing to right wing wankers, who nevertheless won't censor said obscenity because it's a Brit thing.

Roberty De Biro is in this, giving a restrained yet awesome performance. The plot is superb, as is the dialogue. It's a noice '90s time capsule in that Jackie is poor and must subsist on recorfds, not CDs- that's really dated.

Sid Haig is there, too, as the judge. This is a superb henist movie, yet I'm sure thrre are all sorts of directorial bits...?

Pistol- Track 1: Cloak of Invisibility

 "The phantom of the Odeon strikes again!"

Yes, I know. I'm juggling so many shows so why start a new one? Well, at least I've nearly finished Stranger Things, right?

Wow. This is much more textured, interesting telly than I expected from a biopic of merry Sex Pistols guitarist Steve Jones.

We begin, as is traditional in all Pistols-related telly, with a '70s montage framed arounda live Bowie performance of "Moonage Daydream" and Steve nicking stuff, but including such things as unmentionable pop, Barbara Windsor royalist wankery of a rather less ironic and metatextual natutre than the recent frolics, bad clothes, bad decor.

And we get to know Steve, a Sex Pistol who isn't John or Sid- must get round to blogging Sid and Nancy at some point- but is more interesting than either of them. A likeable rogue, who nicks stuff and shags around but is charming and decent underneat it all. Poor, vulnerable, not from a loving home like Paul Cook, whose parents let him play drums in their bedroom  but chucked out of his home by a sexually abusive stepfather.

Yet he finds a surrogate dad in Malcolm McLaren (played, disturbinhly.by Thomas Brodie-Sangster, who I remember well as a child actor in Doctor Who), and already we understand their bond. We also get to know and like Chrissie Hynde, to laugh at Nick Kent, to wallow in a very real-seeming '70s, an era when culture was real and contemporary, and previous decades were not available at a click of the mouse, and borstals were bloody scary..

This is unexpectedly good telly. And Johnny Rotten is still to come...

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Unaired Pilot

 "Hey, you forgot your... stake..."

Yep. Many years after blogging the entire Buffyverse I've finally managed to get access to the unaired original pilot. Where did I find it, you ask?

Oh, look, a squirrel.

Anyway, this is short, sweet and rather cheap-looking, but nevertheless full of the Joss Whedon wit and brilliance (regardless of his very serious flaws as a human being that have leaked in recent months) that we've come to know. It is, essentially, a very truncated version of Welcome to the Hellmouth, complete with the nice bit of misdirection in the opening scene.

The main differences involve the music (the opening titles are "Salvation" by Rancid, which is well cool) and the casting of Willow. It's encouraging that Riff Regan is no stick insect and is a rare example of a woman with a real body shape on television, but acting-wise, although solid, she's no Alyson Hannigan. It's understandable that they recast the part.

Otherwise, though, it's surprising how fully-formed this all feels, from the concept to the characters to the little details like "Dingoes Ate My Baby". A wondefrful little artifact.

The Boys: Herogasm

 "Oh Jesus, your stretching powers!"

Yeah, this line reminds me of a hilarious book called How to Be a Superhero,with illustrations by Steve Dillon. If you remember it- the writers clearly did- you MUST say so in the comments.

Anyway, this is a near perfect episode of television. Not because of all the splendidly filthy Herogasm sexy nastiness... but it helps. It's good to see depressingy exploitative and tool-deflatingly stupid porn, and the whole culture surrounding it, being mocked like this. Top marks for that. Porn is stupid, Erotic stories, generally written by women, are where it's at. Er, anyway...

This is wonderful. Soldier Boy is flawed, damaged, reactionary but honestly so, not like these tiresome modern "warriors" on "woke" who try to disguise the tininess of their penises with their love of Donald Trump (Homelander is, of course, said pathetic orange failure as a human being). One can sympathise with him- as well as damaged, human Butcher and his unfortunate acolyte Hughie- while ultimately acknowledging that Annie is wise, right, and the leader we all need asc she stands up to Neuman and records her devastating resignation speech.

Homelander may survive his pummelling, but surely he's doomed. Yet he's super-powered, and uncontrollable.

Then we have the magnificent opening text, the generally brilliant characterisation, the moving love story between Frenche amd Kimiko. This is sumtuous telly, and this blog post does not, cannot, do justice to it.

Stranger Things: Season 4, Chapter 8- Papa

 "If we're trying to avoid angry hicks, maybe we shouldn't go to a store named The War Zone?"

And so the run of uber-long episodes with ensemble casts continues. It should be over-bloated. It shouldn't work. It does.

Where to start? Eleven's story is amazing, from the betrayal of "Papa" to her perfect verbal denunciation to the dying doctor's face, right after she crashes the helicopter after trying to kill her. Her story in this episode uncannily (deliberately?) echoes that of Luke Skywalker in The Empire Strikes Back, using  her Jedi powers to lift a metal shack and being torn between further necessary training and saving her friends. This has to be a deliberate echo. And her constant gaslighting by "Papa" is every bit as creepy as intendeds.

Then there's the lovely chat between oh-so-brave Max and a lovelorn Lucas. There's Will's selfless act of loving froendship as he reassues Mike about Eleven's need for him- noticed by Jonathan. There's the beautiful love between Joyce and Hopper as they keep trying to escape from Siberia in the most entertainingly funny subplot.

Oh, and the Soviets are breeding tons of Demogorgons in jars. For next season?

Prediction: Eddie's going to die next episode. He's funny, he's cool, we like him. He's scary, but not a coward. He tells Dustin to "never change". He's doomed.

This, if it needed telling, is superlative telly.

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021)

 "What is your name change logic...?"

Shang-Chi, particularly the Doug Moench incarnation, is a distint and fond memory I have from the '80s reprinting, here in the UK, in the pages of Action Force, the tales of the '70s... from which creator Steve Englehart had ejected himself in protest of the racism.

And here we have the problem. Because the '70s comics were based quite heavily and unironically on the works of Sax Rohmer (look him up), with its heavily racist tropes of the "yellow peril" and Fu Manchu, a characte whom... well, if you know the character, and don't cringe, you're being racist, however much you might try not to be.

I must admit, if anything has happened in the comics with Shang-Chi since 1983, this middle aged man knows nothing of it, except to hope it's not bloody racist shite.

Fortunately, this rather entertaining blockbuster film ignores all that. Shang-Chi's father is not Fu Machu(!) but, er, the Mandarin, complete with rings, and Shang-Chi himself has a rather awesome love interest in intelligent waster Katy, not to mention a rather awesome sister.

Disregarding cameos from Wong, the Abomination(!), Captain Marvel and Bruce Banner, and of course the ever- steady post-snap reality, this rather enjoyable film feels, at the momentt, as semi-detached from the wider Marvel universe as one could imagine right now. Yet it's excellent, essentially a Marvel-approved, strictly non-racist,  highly enjoyable Hollywood version of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and films of that ilk. Not massively deep, but superior blockbuster fodder.

David Bowie- Hunky Dory (1971)

 

It's odd I've never blogged this particular album before. I've got rather deeply into Bowie over the years- and by no means just the albums from The Man Who Sold the World up to Let's Dance that you're supposed to like; he did great work throughout his career, and yes, that includes the '90s.

But conventional opinion has this album as one of his very best, and sometimes, just sometimes, conventional opinion is right. 

It's not just the obvious huge hits- Starman"; "Life on Mars"- the whole album is full of bangers. "Bewley Brothers"; "Song for Bob Dylan"- literally every song on the album is absolutely as good as the singles.

This is the moment where Bowie stops being an artist who merely makes good albums and reveals himself as a genius, with much credit due to the rest of the band, of course, not least Mick Ronson. It's also arguably the best album of the early '70s, and a positive sign of something new for a new decade. 

Chances are high that the next album I blog won't be anhywhere near as good...