Creepshow (1982)

“Where’s my Father’s Day cake...?”

EC horror comics, although I’m sad to say I’ve never read any, are best known, unfortunately, for being the unlucky victim of that stupid quack, Fredric Wertham, whose genuine achievements in his earlier career were overshadowed by his ridiculous witch hunt against comic books. They are also known, of course, for two British portmanteau horror films by Amicus, one of which I’ve blogged. But this, more than anything else, makes me want to look at the source material. I love the linking comic book stuff by Bernie Wrightson.

He’s not the only “name” though; the legendary George A. Romero directs and Stephen King, no less, has here not only his screenwriting debut but a deliciously scenery-chewing acting role in one of the segments. Other interesting little points are an unusually menacing role from Leslie Nielsen and Adrienne Barbeau as the most annoying woman in the world. The whole thing is splendidly grand duignol and enormous fun, bookended by scenes of a tyrannical father stealing his son’s comic book and getting his comeuppance, setting both the tone and the style.

As ever with a portmanteau film some segments are better than others, although the tide one was a real highlight, but what works well here is the tone and sense of cheerfully grisly fun that pervades thecwjolw thing. This may not be the greatest horror film ever made but it’s thiroughly enjoyable to watch all the way through, and that’s a superb achievement . The spirit of EC lives on.

Sleeping Beauty (1959)

“Now, father, you’re living in the past. This is the fourteenth century!”

I’ve seen many, many Disney Princess films; I’m the father of a little girl who will be Four in a couple of days and it comes with the territory. Mrs Llamastrangler and I are now resigned to living in a house festooned with Disney princesses and the toys thereof. And yet, Cinderella aside, I haven’t blogged them. This is mainly because I haven’t so much sat down and watched them all the way through but had them on in the background for Little Miss Llamastrangler while I do various parenting and hoist things. However, there comes a point where you’ve seen them so many bloody tones that you can justify a blog post.

Sleeping Beauty is one of Little Miss Llamastrangler’s absolute favourites, right up there with The Little Mermaid and the distressingly ubiquitous Frozen. To my forty-one year old eyes it’s a much better structured and plotted film than Cinderella, not needing to pad out the airtime with cat and mouse hi-jinks, and features a splendid baddie in Maleficent and a splendid set of comic foils with the three Good fairies. There is still, of course, a heroine who talks to animals and some very 1950s show tunes about dreams and all that, but it tells the fairytale well and seems to be perfectly designed for its little target audience.

There are only so many bloody times a dad should have to see it, mind...!

Get Out (2017)

“With my genetic material, shit gonna go down.”

 This is an extraordinary film, still very recent and an instant horror classic. Like the best horror films it holds back its scares and relies on suspense rather than gore, and works superbly on that score. Better than that, it's actually about something.

I'm British, and aware that it is doubly true that some of the commentary about race relations here are specific to America, where the legacy of slavery is something that actually happened in America rather than being too hurriedly dismissed as something that happened in distant colonies, and also that a great deal of it is universal commentary on race relations that very much applies here too.

The film is seen from the perspective of Chris, a nice, likeable, ordinary black man who is nervous about meeting his white girlfriend's very white family and turns out to be very, very justified. And yet said family is not overtly racist- there are no white hoods here and I have absolutely no doubt that Dean Armitage would indeed have voted for Obama a third time if he could. These are people who would be genuinely upset to be thought of as racist and a little too anxious to prove their non-racism in not-very-subtle ways. And yet, as the film points out, these people have seldom met a black person who didn't work for them.

All this happens with a grainy picture an a directorial style which is at once superb and very much employing the unsettling visual grammar of the horror film. The intensity of the hypnotism scene is terrifying, as is the later framing of Georgina's face in a creepy and highly effective scene, a triumph of both actress and director. This is horror by unease rather than jump cuts.

Even the final reveal of what is going on works perfectly as metaphor; the family may want to lobotomise young black people so their grandparents can use their younger bodies, but the racism here is far from overt but more of a metaphor for cultural appropriation and all the subtle, unthinking exploitation that we white liberals almost certainly undertake all the time. An outstanding and thought provoking film.

Belle de Jour (1967)

"What you need is a firm hand..."

I've done lots of geeky films lately and, yes, I love geeky films, but it’s time now for  subtitled foreign film from a big name director, I think. And it’s about time I tried one of Luis Bunuel’s later films, you know, the ones that actually have sound and didn’t inspire any famous songs by the Pixies.

This film is, of course, superbly directed, with a magnificent central performance by Catherine Deneuve, and very much comes across like a literary novel but with camerawork instead of prose. The film is of course about Severine- 23, newly married but still a repressed virgin but who has deeply sexual and indeed kinky fantasies- I like how horsey men with riding crops have a symbolic use throughout. A well-off woman with a maid, no less, she nevertheless ends up working in a brothel out of sheer sexual desire.

Importantly, I think, it is recognised that most women in such a position are forced into sex work by economic necessity; the character of Charlotte is there to represent this. Nor is the dark side underemphasised- customers are violent and dodgy (although, as with Marcel, bad boys have their attractions) and, most disturbingly, a client shows a deeply perverted interest in thevmadam’s visiting school age niece. But for Severine, with no economic need to do this, it’s all about the rough sex and rough treatment she needs sexually and isn’t getting at home from a husband whom she loves but who does not understand her sexual needs. Importantly, though, the film emphasises that sex is not necessarily always about men dominating women but can be the other way around by showing us a client who likes to be dominated himself. But all this takes place in a world which remains misogynistic, with Husson as an important mouthpiece for this entitled misogyny.

It would be silly, I think, to deny that this film could be very much criticised on male gaze grounds, and there is inevitably a whole host of unexamined misogynist assumptions. This is not a feminist film, and while it treats its women as three dimensional characters it presents a very male point of view. But it is, nevertheless, an extraordinary piece of work.

The Gifted- Season 1, Episode 10: eXploited

"Hey, when you gotta go, you gotta go...”

This episode always threatened to be a downbeat one, and unavoidably it is, but we also get a big pleasing twist at the end which seems to offer the chance to divert this first season from its unrelentingly downbeat tone. We begin, though, to a curious flashback- there's a senator, electioneering in ways which are deeply unpleasant in terms of chauvinistic nationalism before he even gets on to his anti_mutant racism. A character for next season?

In the here and now, though, Andy, Lauren, Dream and Blink are captured and collared, and things appear very bleak indeed. And there appears to be nothing but aimless argument at the Mutant Underground, something for Esme, the cuckoo in their nest, to exploit. There's a startling interrogation scene between Jace and Dreamer, though, in which he tells her what she did to him by making him mourn his daughter all over again- and in which he bitterly tells her that he wants not apologies, but vengeance; a nice touch, as this is followed up on.

Campbell, though, is back from hospital, cured, if scarred, and manages to persuade Jace to release all four mutants to him for his nefarious, cruel and extra-legal purposes. We see his cruelty as he forces the Strucker teens to perform their joint power under controlled conditions through torture, during the process of which he murders Sonya in cold blood.

We also see Esme turning the adult Struckers and their mutant allies in different directions, manipulating them and, perhaps not entirely credibly, persuading Reed and Caitlin to try and appeal to Jace's decency; as far as I'm concerned, personal tragedies be damned, he has none. He simply isn't an ambiguous character; he's a shit. Nevertheless, the two of them drive into his neighbourhood, full of flags on people's lawns (does no one in America find this kind of aggressive nationalism creepy?) to the home which Jace shares with Mrs Jace- and attempt to reason with them by gunpoint. Jace, of course, is unmoved, but Mrs Jace is naturally appalled at what her husband has been doing, and that simple question "What are you doing in our little girl's name?" seems to have an effect.

Indeed, when we next see Jace, he's seizing back his prisoners from Campbell and promising to investigate Sonya's suspicious death. But chaos ensues as Thunderbird and the mutants strike, and it becomes clear that Esme has an agenda of her own. Who is she...?

An uneven episode; this season was good at the beginning as it slowly built its world and characters but soon fell into a pattern, and now we may be seeing an escape from this bleak pattern. But there's still plenty of bleakness here and I'm not sure where the ending to this season is going.

The Gifted- Season 1, Episode 9: outfoXed

"Noooooo!"

After a revelatory episode last time we get a decisive one this time. There are only so many times the Mutant Underground can undertake missions without someone getting caught. And this time it’s Blink, Dreamer and the Strucker twins...

We begin with the family discussing the revelations, though. Caitlin is quite resolved to tell the twins about everything, including Andreas and Andrea- and the twins soon find from experimentation that things can get out of control when they hold hands. There’s an interesting dynamic between them, though; on the surface it’s Lauren who is more fearful of this awesome power while Andy is almost eager, but things are more nuanced than that, a nice touch. They get a nice scene in which they muse over whether or not they are doomed to be bad.

At Sentinel Services Campbell is badly burned and refusing medical help, while Jace continues to pursue extra-judicial means in his increasingly disturbing obsession. The mutants know of what Trask are up to from last week, of course, and so we get the routine mission. We also get the routine need to involve Lauren and Andy, and the routine agonised acquiescence from their parents. But it’s genuinely shocking to see that, this time, not only Blink and Dreamer but also Lauren and Andy are captured and at the mercy of Trask and the Hound programme, those horrible collars round their necks. It’s a shocking ending, and a necessary one to pull the series out of its repetitiveness. Things Wouk otherwise have threatened to get rather dull. As it is, the series is still just about interesting me in spite of its unleavened seriousness.

One thing is genuinely superb, though- Amy Acker’s astonishing performance of grief as Caitlin’s children are captured.

Ghost Rider (2007)

"Mooooo!"

I hadn't seen this film until last night hit my expectations we’re not high. The film doesn’t seem to be well-regraded, Nicolas Cage is certainly a very Marmite actor, and Mark Steven Johnson was personally responsible for the crime against cinema that was Daredevil. Having seen it, though, I can’t see much wrong with it and enjoyed it a lot. It’s not up there with the very best but is a perfectly good film.

I suppose the DVD cover didn’t help matters- the quote used praised the film for its special effects, which usually indicates a well-polished turd. Yet the effects are indeed superb here- Ghost Rider looks amazing and the transformation scenes are extraordinary- but the stench of faecal matter is very much absent. There’s a solid script, for a start, making Johnny a sympathetic and well-rounded character and achieving that surprisingly rare trick of making an origin story entertaining. It’s broadly faithful to the comic books, although there’s no mention of Zarathos.

One place they can’t, and shouldn’t be faithful, of course, is with the character of Mephisto, a strange Marvel sort-of-the-Devil-but-not-quite character. For cinematic purposes he has to be treated as a more traditional devil type, and Peter Fonda is magnificent. It’s also a good idea to use Blackheart as the main villain, plot-wise at least. But perhaps stealing the limelight is the splendid Sam Elliott as Carter Oage, the Ghost Rider of the old West who gets one last ride.

This is a satisfying way to spend 100 minutes, a hugely entertaining film. I genuinely don’t understand the hate. Yes, Nic Cage is, er, Nic Cage, And his acting style is certainly unorthodox. But surely he’s perfectly appropriate here...? Received wisdom can be weird.

The Sixth Sense (1999)

“I see dead people!”

I've spent twenty years trying, not very successfully,  to avoid spoilers for this notoriously twist-dependent film. If you've been more successful than I was, PLEASE BUGGER OFF NOW, because it's impossible to talk about this film without spoiling the twist.

Right?

Right.

So... he's dead, isn't he? It's hrd to gauge how unobvious it would have been to the unspoiled, but the anniversary restaurant scene is devilishly clever, and I’m sure the big reveal at the end comes as a shock to the unspoiled; Anna has been distant with Malcolm simply because he’s dead and she’s been mourning him. It is, of course, totally implausible that it would never occur to Malcolm during those eighteen months that he might be a ghost, but I think we can accept that as a sleight of hand.

Beyond that, though, the film is very well made, with some highly effective jump scares with the ghosts, who are largely held back. As ever, it’s suspense that makes a film scary, not gore, and this has it in spades when it so chooses, even if the lighting and picture look so very late ‘90s. It also works brilliantly as a drama, with an impressive performance (and accent) from Olivia Williams but a truly magnificent and career-defining turn from Bruce Willis.

This film is superbly made. Perhaps not one for repeat viewings, as it is dependent on one big twist, but I see why it made the impact that it did.

Incidentally, I thought Philadelphia looked somewhat run down when I visited back in 2001, but this film makes it look beautiful.

The Gifted- Season 1, Episode 8: threat of eXtinction

"I failed! It came back!"

This is, quite clearly, a pivotal episode in which we comics fans have our suspicions confirmed about the decision to use the family name “Strucker”. In fact, we start with a 1952 flashback featuring Andreas and Andrea von Strucker, indeed Fenris, in their full terrifying glory, or at least dialogue about it, which is much kinder on the budget. These mutants are not traditionally X-Men characters, of course, but I like that. And the sense of secrets being uncovered fills the episode.

The other subplot is that the Mutant Underground is dealing with many refugees, one of whom turns out to be a helplessly brainwashed “Hound” spy, although not one without pathos in the manner of her eventual death.

While this keeps the others occupied, John accompanies Reed on a visit to his estranged dad, Otto, who used to work for Trask. What they discover is a real bombshell. Otto is the son of Andreas, is himself a closeted but powerful mutant, and his work with Trask was to eliminate the x-gene and “cure” Reed, his mutant son- what Reed remembers as a serious childhood illness was in fact his powers being erased. Otto could never look his son in the eye after nearly killing him like that, but insists that “everything I did in life was for you!” And he then goes to prove it by sacrificing himself so Reed and John can escape as Sentinel Services come looking.

The bigger revelation, though, is that Lauren and Andy have the same powers as their feared great grandfather add great aunt- what does this mean for them...? This is gripping, fascinating, arc-defining stuff.

In other news, Polaris and Marcos make up and Clarice is subtly integrated into the team, but this extraordinary episode is all about the revelations.

The Gifted- Season 1, Episode 7: eXtreme measures

"All he ever believed in was Magnet Girl..."

A lot of different threads are unfolding- it must be mid-season- in an episode that luxuriates in the fact that we finally know the score ad things can unfold. So we see, in flashback, as Marcos is recruited by John and Lorna, with whom there is a spark from the start. We also see Lorna's disgusted reaction as John is forced to do an underworld ob for his dodgy ex, Carmen. He remains a prisoner of his past.

The same is true of Wes, to whom, following last episode, Lauren is taking a shine. It turns out he has a history of petty theft, but after a bit of a kerfuffle, and some father/daughter awkwardness, he is allowed to overcome them. He and Lauren are still parted for other reasons, though.

John heads off in pursuit of Clarice to find out that she, too, is a prisoner of her past, trying to trace what happened to the foster carers who used to look after her and other mutant children. When John helps her to discover the awful truth- all the people she loved were murdered by Sentinel Services- she finally has a reason to join the Mutant Underground.

Yet most tragically a prisoner of his past is Jace, mourning his daughter again, as he does a deal with the sinister Dr Campbell in agreeing to be more "aggressive" in the use of apparently brainwashed Mutant "assets" called "Hounds". When a lady comes from the Department of Justice to shut this down as being quite illegal and appalling for a free society she is assaulted by a shockingly racist rant from Jace, reminding us that, whatever his personal tragedies, he's a colossal twat. And then said lady suffers a highly convenient stroke...

Meanwhile, the Mutants finally finish reading all the stuff they nicked last week, where they read of Trask Industries (we who know our old comic books recognise that name!) and a family connection for Reed...

The Punisher: War Zone (2008)

"Who punishes you?"

The first Punisher film was, well, a load of late '80s tat with Dolph Lundgren, but fun for that very reason. The second one was, well, shite. This is, in spite of a decent but workmanlike script, elevated by the stylish direction and talented cast into something special.

The script is pretty good, f not great, and gives us Microchip- Wayne Knight is superb- and Jigsaw himself- Dominic West is transcendentally good. The film lives and breathes through its excellent direction; camera angles, framing, use of light are all a cut above what one might expect and Lexi Alexander shows an understanding of how to make an action film work narratively. And then there’s Norn Iron’s very own Ray Stevenson: unlike either Dolph Lundgren or Thomas Jane, he IS Frank Castle, playing the stubborn stoicism of the character while hinting just enough at the pathos beneath.

All this is applied to a pretty par-for-the-course action film plot, but one that allows the central character breathe and one that explores the natural consequences of his actions as he murders an undercover operative. The film emphasises with the Punisher but, importantly, respects his motives without pretending he’s a good guy. Ultimately, though, this is a well-made action film that respects the source material and is cast well. Unexpectedly good.

Inhumans: Behold... the Inhumans

“This is why nobody invites you to do their birthday toasts...”

I’m told the critics didn’t like this, but Mrs Llamastrangler certainly did. First impressions are positive enough, though, although this isn’t the greatest programme ever so far. Fan service is present and correct; the episode ends with Maximus’ coup, but before Lockjaw spirits then away to Hawaii we see Triton (is he dead?), Medusa, Black Bolt, Crystal, Gorgon and Karnak all present and correct. The characters and their powers are all as per the comics, and we’re introduced to Attilan (on the Moon, don’t you know) with an awful lot of spectacle.

There are no stars in the cast, but the relative unknowns are largely impressive, particularly Anson Mount as Black Bolt, necessity requiring physical acting. The whole thing looks rather good, with some splendid CGI; Lockjaw looks awesome, as does Medusa's hair, although the fact that Maximus cuts it off in the first episode means they clearly couldn't afford to maintain the CGI.

This episode is the story of Maximus' coup, instigated against his brother because he wants Inhumans to seize Earth rather than be crowded where they are. Yet Black Bolt rules over no paradise; those Inhumans who get no powers from the Terrigen mists and, unlike Maximus, are not royal, are made to labour in the mines. This is a caste-ridden society, and clearly no democracy.

Overall this is a decent introduction, so I'll give the series a chance. If nothing else, that little cartoon of Lockjaw by the logo is awesome...

Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (1984)

"What happens if a psycho wanders in?"

Sigh. That was boring. It may have had a slightly more famous cast than usual, with Corey Feldman and the always bizarre sight of a hound Crispin Glover not playing George McFly, and have been helmed by Chuck Norris’ favourite director to boot, but this dragged more than any other film in the franchise.

Oh, it starts well, with Jason apparently dead until he comes to life for no apparent reason, and the first deaths are rather amusing. But then the rest of the film goes on to spend too much time following some rather dull teenagers with their romantic escapades punctuated with a series of random deaths which are gory, yes, but have no build-up, no tension. The film isn’t even trying to be scary, and comes across like a half-arsed romantic comedy for far too long. The gory killings, many of them visually impressive, are brief and followed by cuts to more teenage japery.

For the fourth film in the series- with a massive “previously on”- thus offers nothing different to the format except for not even trying to be scary. And I have no idea what they’re trying to do with little Tommy at the end- set him up as another killer? Disappointing, and not helping with my determination to finish them all.

Pet Semetary II (1992)

"You bury your own."

This film is supposed to be awful. It is, or so I e found, perfectly adequate as a serviceable sequel to a quite good film which deals well with the fact that no actors recur from the first film by simply depicting further shenanigans with that Native American cemetery. It’s a perfectly ok film, and an interesting early starring role for an immediately post-Terminator 2: Judgement Day Edward Furlong.

If that sounds like faint praise then it sort of is, but the film is genuinely adequate rather than bad. I liked the bait and switch film-within-a-film opening, and the plot works well at least until the point where people start being resurrected, where things go a bit mad and we end up with a full three resurrected people. Still, it’s an entertaining watch, with Gus the sheriff being an entertaining cartoon baddie in a solid performance by character actor Clancy Brown, a familiar face from so many character roles.

It’s solid, but not really scary. There’s a nice little electrocution scene at the start (“Oh yummy, beef jerky” said Mrs Llamastrangler. She’s a somewhat twisted individual, but that’s why I married her.) but not much else in the way of set pieces, and perhaps a lot of that is down to the solid, competent but unexceptional directorial style. It’s a film that neither sparkles nor stinks, the epitome of averageness.

Avengers: Infinity War (2018)

“There’s an Ant-Man and a Spider-Man?”

At last I can stop dodging spoilers. I’ve seen it, at last. And it was bloody good. SPOILERS, mind.

Big, epic films are usually rubbish. Going epic tends to mean you can’t avoid being a bit po-faced and pretentious. This avoids that triumphantly by peppering the film with both humour and poignant character moments- so Thor gets to open up to, er, Rocket Raccoon about all the people he’s lost recently and, hilariously, Tony Stark and Doctor Strange spend the entire film in a willy waving contest while Bruce Banner spends the whole film dealing with what Mrs Llamastrangler described as “symbolic erectile dysfunction”. Peter Quill and Thor are also hilarious together.

The whole thing is structured, shot and acted superbly by the usual suspects, and it’s extraordinary how so many characters can be given meaty stuff to do in a little under two hours, although perhaps Captain America could have had some more screen time. I notice, of course, that Hawkeye and Ant-Man are described as inactive in dialogue. Of the few new faces, Joan Brolin is superb as a faithfully rendered Thanos while Peter Dinklage also turns in a good performance and, indeed, accent, as a dwarf who forged great weapons out of stars- I like how the film is very cosmic but how it all has a fantasy flavour, cut from the same cloth as Asgard. The film is superb, and the only reason some other Marvel films probably better is because they don’t have so many narrative jobs to do.

But the deaths, ah, the deaths! I somehow suspect that the half of the universe who died at the end won’t stay dead but, alas, I fear that may not be true for Loki, Gamora or the Vision...

The Gifted- Season 1,Episode 6: got your siX

" Nothing says father-son bonding like breaking into a federal building."

Six episodes in and the subplots are all interacting nicely. We also seem to have got to know all the main characters now and things are moving noticeably faster. Revealingly, there’s a longer “previously on”.

We begin with a flashback, though, to four years ago, as John experiences anti-Mutant racism in the wake of 7/15. Interestingly, too, we’re told he was chosen to lead the Mutant Underground by the X-Men, and that the X-Men are expecting a war. This is interesting wider world building, and only the second and third mentions of the X-Men.

We also learn that other Mutants beside Pulse may be working with Sentinel Services, an escalation, and John in turn decides to up the ante with a raid on a mysterious facility at Baton Rouge. Much of the episode revolves around this but a lot of character development happens. In particular, Clarice confronts John on his acceptance after the fact of what Dreamer did to her- and leaves. I’m not sure whether, next time, she will be friend or foe.

Then there’s Jace again, back at work after mourning his child a second time and cutting legal corners in a disturbing pursuit of revenge. He’s now willing to accept the help of Doctor Campbell who, in true TV drama cliche style, he turned down in a previous episode- and Campbell shows a particular interest in “the Strucker children”.

We also have both Andy and Lauren going on missions and developing their powers, both with the reluctant consent of their parents, who are both doing well under the circumstances but struggling to adjust to the harsh new reality. We’re also introduced to Wes, with his power for illusions, who connects with Lauren and proves his usefulness at the dramatic episode ending. But we end with Marco’s being summoned by Carmen to do nefarious things...

A good episode, and one with many moving parts. The Gifted may not be the stuff of greatness, at least not yet, but it’s the stuff of very good indeed.

The Three Musketeers (1973)

“You cannot go to the Queen with dirty legs...”

I hadn’t seen this before, amazingly, so I certainly raised an eyebrow when the opening credits revealed this film to have been scripted by George MacDonald Fraser. This gives certain expectations and, true to form, the film turns out to be a highly entertaining and rather bawdy comedy that has a lot of fun with the culture of realpolitik and duelling that prevailed in the France of Louis XIII. This is a rather straight adaptation of the novel, albeit one in which Faye Dunaway as Milady gets oddly little screen time, but one that adds a splendidly comical gloss to what was hardly the most serious novel to begin with.

This is a decadent France reigned, but not ruled over by the feckless Louis XIII, not half the man his father was or, indeed, his son will be, leaving a vacuum to be filled by the ambitious Cardinal Richelieu, a competent but oddly miscast Charlton Heston, with the far more suitable Christopher Lee in a lesser role. Perhaps they just needed a big Hollywood name, but why hardly use Faye Dunaway?

Regardless, the whole thing looks gorgeous, odd though the Hong Kong martial arts opening may be, and the cast is quite magnificent. Michael York is the perfect bumbling D’Artagnan for this film,  Raquel Welch is the perfect sultry Constance, and Christopher Lee mystifies is all A’s to why he isn’t playing the Cardinal. The film is pretty much stolen by the splendid comic acting of Spike Milligan though, who shoes us what a bloody comic genius he is.

I don’t think I’ve seen a finer version yet than this.

First Blood (1982)

"We ain't hunting him- he's hunting us!"

Appallingly, I'd never seen this '80s action classic until now. First impressions are that, yes, it's a superb action movie, crammed with sizzling set pieces, yet I came expecting a B movie, and what I got was unexpectedly full of pathos. It's 1982; the Vietnam War ended nine years ago for America. But it seems the returning soldiers were shockingly neglected, materially and emotionally, by their country. And, while this is often seen as a right-wing taking point, Rambo's sobbing breakdown before Colonel Trautman seems to be a rebuke at America's individualistic lack of social democratic institutions.

Anyway, this is an awesome film, and cleverer than it  looks. The initial scene establishes that his only purpose is to find his old friends from the war,  it now the last of them is dead, and he’s alone, alienated, in an America with no place for him. And when Will, a two bit sheriff of a shitty little town in Washington state (those accents are a bit southern, though- is this really accurate?) starts to persecute him for no reason it escalated into a war with a trained and flawless killing machine, leaving things to escalate and escalate with each set piece topping the last and every single minute being utterly gripping. And yet Stallone, playing the macho and taciturn Rambo, never loses sight of the character’s pathos.

The whole thing is brilliantly made, from the brief but shocking Vietnam flashbacks during the early police brutality scenes to the Dukes of Hazzard car chases, and the ever-escalating stakes are completely believable. A much better film, and one with much more of a heart, than I was expecting.

The Gifted- Season 1, Episode 5: boXed in

“This is the best terrible meal that I’ve ever had!”

This is just as gripping as the last episode as The Gifted slowly burrows its way into my brain. The mutants and the Struckers are all free and all together- although not without tension as Reed’s last actions are revealed- and chief baddie Jace is pulling out all the stops to find their HQ, rounding up all sympathisers.

Except our view of Jace as a straightforward black hat is now challenged by the revelation that he lost his only daughter in a 9/11 analogue event that, in a nice bit of world-building, seems to have been the cause of all these repressive policies. He’s given a motive and, in a subtle touch, a multi-racial family to challenge our seeing him as a straightforward racist.

The Mutant Underground is under real pressure and in real danger of their base being found and, lovely though it is seeing Lorna and Marcos together again and taking some time to be excited about their baby despite everything. But Reed makes sure that his operational knowledge is of use and, at no small risk to himself, puts Sentinel Services off the scent. Meanwhile Caitlin again shows her use as a nurse, although not without considerable help from Lauren’s powers. But the Struckers are together, and all agreed for now to stay and help. This feels like the end of the origin story bit so the main stuff can begin, but it’s all very well plotted out. And all the characters are becoming subtly more and more developed. The confrontation between Blink and Dreamer, who violated her memories, is powerful.

More powerful of all, though, is the ending- Dreamer has messed with Jace’s memories, he’s forgotten his daughter is dead, and must mourn her all over again, the worst torture imaginable and one that makes it impossible for us kid to sympathise with the antagonist. Superb stuff.

The Dead Room

"When were you born?”

“1990.”

“Christ!”

This is an admittedly cheap but well cast attempt in BBC Four where Mark Gatiss (naturally!) writes and directs a deliberately modern slant on M.R. James style ghost stories for Christmas. It’s a very good piece of drama with excellent dialogue, a superbly characterised central character, and yet... it isn’t eerie or scary. And it’s not immediately obvious why.

Simon Callow is, inevitably, spellbinding in the central role of Aubrey Judd, veteran radio teller of horror stories, while Anjli Mohindra alsonimpresses as his obscenely young producer in what is essentially a two hander on two similar sets and could easily have been a stage play. This isn’t the 1970s M.R. James adaptation so no sumptuous location filming please; we’re BBC Four.

The script is in many ways superb and literally gothic in that a sun from Aubrey’s past literally comes back to haunt him. Yet, in the wake of A Very English Scandal, there are many poignant reminders of the real dangers of being gay in the 1970s, something which works well. I also admire the light breakage of the fourth wall as Aubrey eloquently deconstructs the modern ghost story; it can’t be too modern, requires a certain distance, more or less within living memory, and a certain old-fashioned reticence in holding back the nature of the horror. You can, he claims, base a horror tale on a horror from as recently as the ‘70s!

And yet, good though this is as a little piece of drama, it doesn’t quite work. I’m not sure the script is to blame, or indeed Gatiss’ direction; I suspect it’s the case that limited resources are the culprit here, and the play just isn’t scary. And that’s a shame.

Spider-Man 3 (2007)

“Where do all these guys come from?”

The critics didn’t like this film; I went in knowing that. So I’m left wondering what parts low expectations had in what I made of the film, but I liked it; perhaps more so than Spider-Man 2, and that certainly isn’t what you’re supposed to think.

We’re told this film is an overcrowded mess with too many villains. Well, it isn’t. Both Sandman and Venon are tied in well to Peter Parker’s character development and play important roles, as does Harry Osbourne.  Gwen  Stacy plays an important role too; the film packs a lot in but doesn’t feel rushed. Instead, it actually justifies its long running time.

The core of the film is, of course, the symbiote as a symbolic representation of Peter’s dark side- the arrogance, the selfishness, the temptations that lurk within us all. From a situation of seeming perfection at the start of the film- things are going well for Peter in his love life, studies, work and Spider-Man is insanely popular- we immediately know that the bubble is bound to burst and, importantly, Peter starts to show some neglect for MJ’s work problems before the symbiote even affects him, but as soon as he puts in the dark costume (it’s a shame they didn’t use the proper version of the costume, as Benom looks pretty similar, but heigh-ho...)

Yes, Venon gets relatively little screen time, but a version of Eddie Brock is well used, Harry (whine, conveniently, we already know) is well used and Flink Marco (Sandman) is given a tragic backstory and an important role into being (rather crudely) retconned into Ben Parker’s killer. He’s well portrayed by Thomas Gaden Church and, while both he and Venom have limited screen time, I liked the way both were used. This isn’t a Joel Schumacher Batman film; all the characters are properly developed, however minor, including May, Jonah and the rest of the supporting cast.

So ignore the criticisms; this is a fine film. It also has a top cameo by Bruce Campbell as a snooty French maitre d’, and the CGI with both Sandman and Venom deserves an awful lot of praise. It’s sad that this is the last of the Sam Raimi films; I wish they had more of a wisecracking Spidey, but the trilogy is excellent on the whole, and ends on a high.

The Greatest Showman (2017)

"They're laughing anyway, kid. So might as well get paid."

This is notorious, of course, for being the film that critics utterly despised yet going on to become a massive word-of-mouth hit. Having now seen it I can see why it did well; it’s very well-shot and choreographed. Nevertheless, I didn’t like the songs at all as they sound like contemporary  chart pop with all the unlistenable production that implies, but some people must like chart pop.

This is a musical about Phineas T. Barnum, a figure whose life I know only in broad strokes and who is famous these days mainly for the apocryphal “there’s a sucker born every minute”. But the film presents him, Hugh Jackman’s charm and his being a good family man aside, as a deeply exploitative bastard who exploits those with actual talent- even if the “talent” is to be a dwarf or bearded woman- in order to make himself rich. He’s no better than Simon Cowell, a deeply unpleasant individual who uses, abuses and discards people and is a morally disgusting beast of a human being. When he finally abandons his “freaks” for a night, not wanting them to be seen by his posh mates as he puts on a big opera do, we see how little they mean to him in spite of giving him his fortune, and the bearded lady gets an uplifting song. Yet later on, in a perverse type of Stockholm syndrome, when Barnum nearly loses everything they insist on staying as part of the “family”. This is very uncomfortable to see.

And perhaps that’s it; it’s superbly directed and very well made, and well acted in spite of the central character’s surprising blandness, and I suppose the songs are aimed at people who can stand modern chart pop- they certainly aren’t show tunes- but I’m not sure what the script is trying to do. It seems to want to be a simple, escapist melodrama but you can’t really deal with the theme of “freak shows” without having something coherent to say about them, and this film doesn’t. It’s very well made by it’s largely Australian crew, but in the end it’s a largely empty experience.

The Ash Tree

“Cut it down!”

An obscure little gem, this; a thirty minute BBC drama from 1975 and the first of the legendary screenplays based on the ghost stories of M.R. James (who, alas, I have not read) that I’ve seen, courtesy of BBC 4 on Christmas Eve.

It’s well-made on location, superbly acted with a role by none other than Lalla Ward as the not-to-be Lady Fell, and uses good, economic direction to tell a rather complex, non-linear story very quickly. You have to pay attention and, I suspect intentionally, not everything gets explained- what are the creatures in the tree? What’s the connection of the tree to the witch trials of a century earlier? We get only a general gist of what’s going on, but a bit of mystery is good. It’s refreshing to watch something from a time when the audience wasn’t talked down to, earlier. We aren’t spoon fed; the only clue to Sir Richard’s time period is the clothing and the fact that Tom Jones is a current novel, and the switch between time periods is narrated visually rather than overtly signalled. Edward Petheridge, whom I know best as George III in Jonathan Strange & Mr Norell, is superb both as Sir Richard and the hypocritical Sir Matthew, who directly causes an innocent woman to be hanged as a witch.

This packs an awful lot into thirty-odd minutes and is a nice little curio from the BBC of the ‘70s. I shall certainly try and watch more of these M.R. James Christmas ghost stories.

Doctor Who: Resolution

“I always think I’m rid of them. I never am.”

This episode was written by Chris Chibnall. It is genuinely superb. Those two sentences don’t feel right together but, incredibly, they belong together on this occasion. This is a brilliant piece of telly, with a genuinely superb dramatic scene between Ryan and his father, and the best use of the Daleks since, well, Dalek, using the threat posed by one Dalek to banish all memories of recent years to re-establish them as the ultimate baddie to be feared.

The set-up is superb; narration, a mediaeval fairytale backstory and a mythical tale of an ultimate monster split into thirds and buried in far-flung places. A pair of archaeologists established as real characters through good dialogue before one of them is put through the wringer. And yet the true brilliance is in the basic plot- a naked Dalek without its casing reassembled after twelve centuries and forced to manipulate humans slowly into building it a makeshift casing out of available materials like an episode of the A-Team. This is brilliant not only because it's a fresh and superb take on the Daleks but because we are establishing that not only is one Dalek an unimaginable threat but that it doesn't even need any weapons or equipment or anything other than, well, a bubbling lump of hate itself to come damn close to annexing this planet.

Even better, the reveal of the Dalek casing is quite rightly held back, and the Heath Robinson nature of this Dalek has us clamouring for us to see how they actually look in the Chibnall era. No doubt we have that to look forward to. Next bloody year.

If I may nerd out a little more, though, it's great to have the little fan nods ("I wish I could remember exactly how long a Rel is") and the firm statement that there is no Kate Stewart and no UNIT in the Chibnall era; the Doctor and her friends are on their own. UNIT has been mothballed, it seems, for pettifogging and deeply shortsighted financial reasons, as happens in politics all the time, and the UK has decided to leave an international organisation which is vital to its security and prosperity and bugger the frankly terrifying consequences. It's good that nothing analogous is happening in real life, right?

This is also a much better episode for the Doctor and her by now very well-knit crew; right from the tour of the universe's best CGI for New Year at the start they're a united and supportive bunch, although Yas yet again seems to get the least to do. It's a phenomenally strong Ryan episode, of course, introducing us to his dad Ryan after a lot of set-up over the last season. The result is an extraordinarily written scene in a cafe between father and son, and a masterfully written arc for Ryan, Aaron and Graham. I like the nuances of Aaron's character; far from being a cipher of a deadbeat dad he's a highly competent and able engineer, and while no excuses are made for his past behaviour he's shown as genuinely wishing to feel his way towards redemption. And Chibnall should be praised for resisting the easy cop-out ending of having Aaron sacrifice at the end; instead his near-death helps him with beginning to re-connect with his son.

Come to think of it, not a single named character dies- in a Dalek story.

I can't really fault this. I spent the whole of Season 37 waiting in vain for Chibnall to wow me, and at last he's done it. For the first time he's written a story for Doctor Who that is worthy of debate as to whether it deserves classic status. What took him so bloody long?

Black Panther (2018)

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

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

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

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

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

Scrooge (1951)

"Humbug!"

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

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

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

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

Sherlock Holmes and the Deadly Necklace (1962)

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

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

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

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

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

A real shame.

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)

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

"Quiet!"

"What...?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Gifted- Season 1, Episode 4: eXit strategy

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

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

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

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

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

The Gifted- Season 1, Episode 3: eXodus

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Legion: Chapter 8

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

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

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

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

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

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

Gremlins (1984)

“Now I have another reason to hate Christmas!"

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

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

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

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

Batman & Robin (1997)

"This is why Superman works alone!”

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

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

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

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

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

Legion: Chapter 7

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Legion: Chapter 6

“Deja vu, but not?"

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

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

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

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

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

Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors (1965)

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

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

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

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

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

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

Doctor Who: The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos

“Don’t aliens ever bother with doors?”

Sigh. That was a season finale?

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

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

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

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

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

Chibnall must go.

Fifty Shades Freed (2018)

"So why do you defy me?"

"Because I can!"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Legion: Chapter 5

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

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

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

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

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

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

Doctor Who: It Takes You Away

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

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

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

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

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

Beavis and Butt-Head Do America (1996)

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

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

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

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

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

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