Angel: The Girl in Question

"How did she ever fall for a centuries-old guy with a dark past who may or may not be evil?"

This is the last ever fluffy episode of the entire Buffyverse and it’s utterly hilarious, as well as giving us what are probably last flashbacks of Darla and Drew- and also Andrew, and sort of Buffy. It may not get the praise that the serious episodes around it may do, but it’s equally brilliant in its own way.

There are three things going on here. One is the conceit that the Immortal, who is very big in Rome, is constantly seducing and, er, satisfying any woman he wants, frequently including Angel’s and Spike’s desired, both in the present and in flashback, and it’s all comedy gold. I especially loved Darla’s glowing little monologue. (“Oh, darling! It was just fornication. Really great fornication...”)

The second is the surprise arrival of Fred’s parents, and Illyria’s unexpected ability to impersonate Fred perfectly, something which freaks Wesley out deeply, and makes him tell her in no uncertain terms never to do it again- but we can tell, in spite of her defensive arrogance, that Illyria likes him.

But the third thing is essentially to transport the whole concept of the programme to an Italian (and to a limited sense European as a whole) context, complete with Vespas everywhere and an identical Wolfram & Hart office with Angel’s very Italian counterpart, Ilona, with her casual racism against gypsies prefiguring Italy’s current openly Fascist government. There’s a bit of social commentary here- Angel and Spike want to use violence to get the MacGuffin of the week, where their Italian counterparts resort immediately to bribery. “Oh, look,” says an Italian demon, “the Americans are relying on violence to solve their problems. What a surprise!”

There’s a lot going on here, I think. This is 2004, after all, the time of Afghanistan, Iraq, wars on abstract nouns and the re-election of an American president who we all thought at the time would be the worst ever. So there is, I think, an implied self-criticism of American war willingness, but also an implication that violence has integrity, that diplomacy is corrupt and appeasing. It’s not necessarily the self-effacing joke it may first seem.

The ending is perfect- a sulking Angel and Spike hearing words of wisdom from Andrew, who then reveals himself to have been changing into a fix and proceeds to go out with two gorgeous women. It’s a wonderful and fun episode. We shall never see its like again.

See No Evil 2 (2014)

“I’m more of a cake and cadavers kind of girl...”

This may be a by-the-numbers modern slasher sequel, it may have no stars and it may be a bit obscure. But it’s a perfectly decent film and far better than any Friday the 13th I’ve seen so far.

It’s a direct follow-on from the first film, set in the morgue to which the dead are taken, including Jacob, who of course is not actually dead for reasons that solid genre convention allows to go cheerfully unexplained. Working here are Amy, Seth and Holden plus a bunch of interestingly flawed individuals invited for an unorthodox birthday party. It’s a solid basis for a slasher.

The film is, of course, like all the best of its ilk, winking at us with regards to the cliches. Hence the couple who have sex next to Jacob Goodnight’s apparent corpse are doomed. Hence Amy signs her death warrant by offering to stay and help with the nine incoming bodies rather than take her chance to leave for her birthday piss-up. And there are, of course, no survivors, with Seth seeming to get away until the last moment where Jacob gouges out his eyes- we need to have some kind of nod to the title, after all.

This is a classic, well-constructed, traditional but delightfully self-aware base under siege slasher that benefits from a strong setting and good characterisation. I rather liked it.

The Incredibles 2 (2018)

"I renounce my renunciation!"

 I watched this film over the weekend with Mrs Llamastrangler and Little Miss Llamastrangler, who is now rather obsessed with Elastigirl. This is, of course, a rather fun little film which has similar fun with superhero tropes as the last movie. It’s a splendid film, this time focusing on Elastigirl leading the heroics while Mr Incredible struggles with handling the domestics at home.

So, yes, one point for trying to be feminist and minus one for continuing the trope of men being hapless in the domestic sphere. Still, it’s funny, witty and charming and had us all entertained. The plot, revolving around the villainous and Saw-like (in a kid-friendly way) Screenslaver, and the tantalising prospect of superheroics being legal again, is also fun, even if the real baddie’s identity is rather obvious if you happen to be 41 rather than four.

Oh, and Jack-Jack now has an astounding number of powers. Good luck with raising that child, although the scenes of Bob trying to control the little sod are rather amusing. You finish the film rather satisfied by an entertaining and well-constructed piece of entertainment. Maybe one day we will have a real Fantastic Four movie that’s this good.

Is it me, though, or does tycoon superhero fan Winston look just like Lee Mack?

The Bride of Frankenstein (1935)

"He's a very queer looking gentleman, Sir."

This isn't the first time I’ve seen this film, of course, but it’s been a bit of a while. It’s as good as ever this time round, of course, one of cinema’s great sequels, but a different experience after so many years. It’s a lot more noticeable this time, for one thing, how the delightfully camp Dr. Pretorius, making Henry Frankenstein look even more neurotic by comparison, strives to separate Henry from his heterosexual relationship so the two of them can do things together of which society disapproves, for which Pretorius has been banned from academia, and which are generally considered (it being a vague Romantic period or 1935, depending on how diabetic we wish to be) to be going against God. Hmm. What are we saying here, Mr Whale? Incidentally, I love the little people with their silly costumes.

The other thing that surprised me this time round is just how late in the film the “Bride” appears; just for the last four minutes. Elsa Lanchester looks and is superb, however. And it is of course the real tragedy that the monster, having known a little friendship from a blind man rather keen to push smoking on to him (“No, no, this is good. Smoke- you try.”), is hated by all and the fact that his intended mate is terrified of him too is simply the final straw. He can have no connection with others, thus no happiness, and so he wants to die- bringing Pretorius and the Bride with him. There’s a hint of violent male attitudes towards rejection by women there, I think. It’s also hard to keep my inner Alan Partridge in check as both the title “Bride of Frankenstein” and the fact that Pretorius says the line for no diegetic reason at his moment of triumph seems to call the monster “Frankenstein”. But it’s hard to deny what an absolute work of genius this film is.

Angel: Time Bomb

”She still thinks she’s the god-king of the universe.”

“So, she’s like a TV star.”

“No, nothing that bad.”

In a way this episode is a way to get from A to B- Illyria is clearly too powerful to have around so her powers have to be sharply reduced for the final few episodes so the upcoming apocalypse can have some sense of threat. But not before she uses said powers to rescue Gunn, of course. He made it quite clear last episode he’d repented and there’s no narrative need to keep him in that rather unpleasant basement when he has far more interesting things to be doing as a key member of the cast.

We also start getting comments- especially in the rather interesting conversation between Gunn and Lorne- about how Wesley is coming across as increasingly unhinged and obsessive, something portrayed superbly by Alexis Denisof. Lorne, meanwhile, seems to be departing from his entertainment brief to revert to his old role as Greek Chorus-cum-comic relief. And Spike, despite the jokes at his expense, is increasingly being accepted as one of the gang. Oh, and Mercedes McNab finally makes the titles.

There’s an interesting early scene where Marcus castigates the gang for blowing so much money on Gunn’s rescue and obliterating their previously huge profits- “It’s business, boys, not a Batcave”- which makes an interesting contrast with Angel’s later decision, to Gunn’s horror, to allow a baby to be given to a bunch of demons for eventual sacrifice. We’re left to wonder whether Angel is indeed starting to be corrupted, and what this has to do with the apparently ongoing apocalypse.

Of course, the bulk of the episode focuses on Illyria speechifying at Wesley and various others as her human frame struggles to hold her power, and only after a load of very weird timey-wimey stuff does Wesley cure her. As Angel hints towards the end she may now be ready for the team, if she can dial back the conquering urge a bit.

Again, superb stuff. The timey-wimey stuff is a bit bizarre, though.

Angel: Origin

"In gratitude, I grant you three wishes."

"Really?"

"Nah, I'm just messing with you."

Connor, inevitably, is back for an episode. This shouldn’t surprise us. What does come as a pleasant surprise, though, is how well it’s done, and how the fact that Angel altered reality and everybody’s memories acts to drive a wedge between him and Wesley in particular.

Connor’s life may be a lie, and his memories false, but these lies have made him into a healthy, pleasant, well-adjusted young man with a strong relationship with his family and a place at Stanford. He still has superhuman endurance, though, which brings him to the attention of Wolfram and Hart, and although Angel initially, to the gang’s confusion, runs away from the problem, he can’t keep himself away. He soon learns from Marcus that the Senior Partners have nothing to do with putting Connor back in his life- instead Cyvus Vail, the demon who changed Connor’s memories, no wants to use Connor to kill Sahjahn as is, of course, prophesied. Although why Vail didn’t try to do this earlier I have no idea.

I like Cyvus Vail. He’s a witty, likeable character as is Sahjahn. It’s a shame that one of them has to die, and so Sahjahn adds to this season’s growing body count. It’s a fun and entertaining set of scenes, paralleled with the horrifying Wesley discovering the truth about the reality shift, and restoring everyone’s memories.

This will, I suspect, affect Wesley’s trust for Angel, especially as early dialogue to Illyria highlighted how much he trusts his boss at that point. But the interesting effect on Connor; at first he seems to become his old, wild self and kills Sahjahn, only to return to his well-adjusted self. And the final scenes hint that, although he has his old memories back and knows the truth, he remains the man his new memories made him and chooses his current life- a mature, healthy response.

Meanwhile, Gunn is being regularly tortured in the cellar in a quest for redemption. So keen is he to redeem himself that he turns down an offer of release from Marcus- no more deals with the devil for him, no matter what the cost. This scene is here to show he’s learned his lesson; I suspect his days in Hell are numbered.

Another great episode, then. But aren’t they all at the moment?

Inhumans: Divide and Conquer

“Giant cow dogs do not exist.” A better episode this week as the need for exposition diminishes, we know the characters and the story can feather. It still feels a bit like that final season of Torchwood, though.

There’s a series of flashbacks here with Black Bolt and Maximus as children where a pre-mists Black Bolt expresses reluctance to be king as Maximus glowers, and we see both his parents’ trust in him to control his power and Avon gently telling Maximus that he’s a simple, vanilla human. Nice to have all these, I suppose, but the flashbacks don’t tell us anything we can’t infer, which makes their inclusion questionable. I suppose at least we have Agon explicitly telling Maximus he can never be king.

We also see Black Bolt threatened with violence in prison but making a friend with (Inhuman?) powers and connections with whom he manages to escape. I’m not sure how his friend manages to interpret his apparent muteness as a superpower though. He’s followed  throughout by the tenacious Louise, who manages to witness their helicopter escape- which just misses Medusa, whose own subplot has been treading water up until now.

Crystal manages to defy Maximus, find Lockjaw and escape to Hawaii, while Gorgon and his Hawaiian nationalist mates fight away an attack by Auran and her gang, including the mysteriously powerful Mordis. And Karnak, powers still damaged, is suffering a crisis of confidence and throws his lot in with some weed farmers.

We have a cliffhanger ending in which Lockjaw is, er, hit by a quad bike. All this is watchable and just about ok, but it’s awfully slow with a lot of treading water. Can we have a bit less of this boring old Earth stuff please?

Friday the 13th: A New Beginning (1985)

“You better watch out for the snake that’s going to crawl up that crapper and bite your ass.”

This is the film in the franchise that everyone hates because Jason isn’t in it. You’re not supposed to like it. And, let’s face it, I haven’t much liked the Friday the 13th franchise so far which so far has consisted of a series of increasingly formulaic and by-the-book slashers. So, although it would be heretical to start liking this of all films in the series, chances are slim, right?

Well, sorry. Grab your torches and pitchforks and start laying siege to my castle. I like this film. It’s quite good. Now, let’s not exaggerate: I wouldn’t use a stronger phrase than “quite good”. But quite good it is. It’s well structured, well shot, the deaths may be quite similar and mostly done with knives but they’re well done with lots of suspense. And, even better, with Jason out of the picture there’s a real mystery to the killings. Tommy from the last film is all grown up and ready to be the red herring here, carefully kept away from the murders until revealed not to be the killer at the climax... until he shows himself to have a Jason mask and actually sets out to be the second Jason copycat killer. It’s all quite clever and asks as a rather good origin story for Tommy/Jason which, I’m fairly sure, will never be followed up on.

The identity of the real killer is cleverly done, too; a real surprise but the clues were there, fair and square. As a film about the legacy of Jason rather than Jason himself it, er, actually works better. Sorry. Also, the characters are actually likeable and have personalities, even if one of them does look rather creepily like Michael Jackson, who in 1985 was known as the “King of Pop” rather than as a notorious child molester- that’s one thing that’s dated. But no review of this film would be complete without a mention of the splendidly sweary Ethel, who deserves a film of her own.

So, yeah, I quite liked it. Soz.

The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)

"Holy mackerel!”

This is the second time I've seen this film; twenty years ago it blew me away and I'd still say it's superb and a uniquely thoughtful '50s flying saucer movie with a lot to say. But perhaps this time my eyebrow as a little more raised. I still love the film, but I can see its flaws.

It's still a very serious moral fable, with flaws that I'll get to later, which comes across as thoughtful and is superbly directed, with oe of the most effective flying saucers in all of cinema. But the characterisation... well, Klaatu is a bit of an arrogant dick (I'll get to that later too) but otherwise we have a bunch of characters who are essentially just ciphers, along with the most "gee whiz" kid in the history of cinema. And, well, let's just look at the plot, shall we?

Klaatu is from 250-odd miles away, so within the Solar System, if a little further than the suggested Mars or Venus, both plausibly inhabited by what was known in 1951. That being the case, you can sort of see how the fact that Earth has nukes and is starting to explore space travel might be seen as a threat. But expecting humanity to entirely expunge all aggression or face genocide? I mean, come on. I'm as big a wishy-washy liberal as they come but aggression will never be removed from human nature, nor is it necessarily always a negative or violent thing. And in threatening to destroy us Klaatu is not exactly occupying the moral high ground. That would be collective punishment, as blatant a war crime as there could possibly be.

Oh yes, and then he is killed by violent humans and resurrected by Gort in an obvious Christ parallel, something that has to be done thoughtfully to avoid being pretentious and, while I'm certainly not religious, I have to observe that nowhere in the Gospels, or so I believe, does Christ threaten to destroy the human race if they refuse to follow his teachings.

That aside, though, I genuinely enjoyed the film, honest! it's extremely well made, watchable, and while its message doesn't quite work it is at least about something. It also gave us the names for no fewer than three denizens of Jabba the Hutt's sail barge...

Ready Player One (2018)

”Ninjas don't hug!"

 Well, that was certainly superb. Who'd have thought it; a film from Steven Spielberg with no didactic music, no real stars and a very fresh feel. This film is hugely entertaining and so very 2018.

Superficially, perhaps, you could say this film is a bit like Tron, being set mainly in cyberspace with a corporate baddie. But, in truth, the film goes so much deeper, and has so much more to say, than the cool visuals and the myriad, admittedly awesome, pop culture references. And that isn't just about today's gamer, streaming and Twitch culture (Mrs Llamastrangler knows much more about all this than I do) in spite of the many obvious references.

It's 2045, and what we see of the world (well, Ohio) is grim and poverty-stricken aside from a few corporate bigwigs. People live in "stacks", trailer parks stacked on top of each other, and escape their lives through ubiquitous VR and, in particular, through the Oasis, a VR oasis invented by the late James Halliday and his mate, played by the superb Mark Rylance along with the ever-splendid Simon Pegg, both bizarrely with American accents. Through this world we follow Wade, love interest Art3mis and the slightly undeveloped rest of the gang as they try to complete the online quest left by Halliday to gain control of his empire.

Put like that it seems almost pedestrian, a kind of cross between Tron and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, but it’s so much more than that. The commentary on escapism into an online world, a kind of VR Second Life where capitalism continues to operate as avatars depend on “coin” for how they look and what they can do, is acutely clever. So is the hint that not only has pop culture become, well, culture, but that the immediate access to cheap music and films will mean the pop culture of the late twentieth century will remain relevant and new pop culture will fail to be supported. There’s IOI with its “loyalty centres”, or debtor’s prisons, a serious potential future problem if debt laws are not reformed. There’s a reminder that reality is what actually matters and that being online is but an extension of this. There’s s love story. There’s the Holy Hand Grenade. There’s MechaGodzilla. This is easily the best new film I’ve seen for a long time.

Angel: Underneath

"This isn't Hell. It's the 'burbs."

This is an excellent finely crafted piece of television drama. The script is superb; I feel I haven’t praised Sarah Fain and Elizabeth Craft highly enough so here’s me doing it now. They are brilliant, whether it’s characterisation or plot, and their dialogue may not have the playfulness of a Joss Whedon but has a delightfully wry wit. I’ll miss them, and am puzzled at how little else they seem to have written.

This is a pivotal arc episode, of course; Lindsey is rescued so he can tell Angel what the Senior Partners are up to, namely corrupting him and his friends to keep the distracted from “the” Apocalypse, which is apparently the actual one and not one of those common or garden apocalypses that happen at the end of most Buffyverse seasons. It also sees Eve sign away her job, and her immortality, to a new liaison from the Senior Partners played by none other than Adam Baldwin, another Firefly alumnus. It’s cleverly done how he’s presented as an unstoppable threat who arrives implacably in front of Eve and produces... a pen.

Lindsey’s “holding dimension” is fascinating, reached by a magical car that evokes KITT from Knight Rider- we are primed to expect a Hell yet our first sight of him he looks very post-coital with his beautiful wife. Lindsey has a beautiful family in an enormous picket fence house but he seems to be afraid of the cellar. Only later do we find that he’s tortured there daily.

And here, of course, lies Gunn’s redemption. I love Angel’s pep talk to him as one who should know- yes, Gunn will forever be tormented by what he has done and yes, he should be. But he’s a good man and needs to atone. And that’s what he does- by taking Lindsey’s place in full knowledge that means daily torture. Redemption indeed.

But Lorne is headed in no such direction. Having run away unable to face Fred’s death he’s been drinking himself silly, depressed and disillusioned. He may have decided to  return and pretend to be functioning but he’s clearly shocked to see Angel and Spike without Gunn.

All this and we get done nicely scripted interplay between a very grim Wesley and an Illyria horrified at her relative weakness. We still don’t like her yet, but the script is gamely trying.

Absolutely first class telly.

Inhumans: Those Who Would Destroy Us

”I have to wait here until they send someone to bring me back.”

“Back where?”

“The Moon.”

“Cool!”

Episode 2 and, while the Hawaiian locations are visually sumptuous, I can’t help noticing that, after front loading the visual excitement of Attilan and all the awesome-looking Inhumans, we now have a shorn Medusa, less screen time for Lockjaw and most screen time either on Earth or in grey Attilan corridors.

We have four Inhumans on Earth: Karnak appears to have damaged himself; Gorgon has found some friends who accept what he is; Medusa is on a tourist bus; and Black Bolt is in central Honolulu being a damn fool. I can forgive the traffic incident which was beyond his control, but really- stealing clothes and assaulting a security guard? No wonder he gets himself arrrated on what threatens to be a tedious sub-plot.

Things are more interesting on Attilan, as ever, as Iwan Rheon shows himself to be superb as ever, with Maximus playing his little power games with that classic mixture of charm and threats to try and get Crystal and the Genetics Council onside. His flirting with political radicalism, with there being an existing underclass, is interesting. He’s playing with fire here but the grievances appear genuine. It’s interesting, too, that Crystal’s own parents were political radicals who opposed the royals.

Also interesting is Auran, agent and assassin working for Macimus who appears to be able to come back to life after being killed. So far there’s a lot of potential promise here in the ply lines, but it’s becoming clear that, Maximus and Black Bolt aside, few of the characters exactly ooze charisma and there looks to be a worrying amount of Earthbound treading of water.

From Hell (2001)

“You’re not going to see the twentieth century...”

I first saw this at the pictures when I was at uni back in 2001, long before I first read Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell’s magnificent graphic novel. I quite enjoyed it at the time, I remember. This time, not so much. Is it because a whodunit which only hints at the depths of the graphic novel seems much shallower in comparison, in effect meaning that the film is unfairly disadvantaged in my estimation because I happen to have read the source material? Or is it that watching graphic entertainment based on the murder and misogynistic disembowelling of women is perhaps a more unsettling viewing in 2019 than it was in 2001?

Perhaps a bit of both. Certainly the film works well as a whodunit, although it skates close in the early scenes a couple of tones to giving away Jack the Ripper’s identity. But the real meat of the graphic novel, the long monologues by Gull and especially the stuff about Freemasons and “Juwes”  (how true is what Moore claims?) is dealt with only superficially. But perhaps there are only so many depths you can reach in a two hour film.

Beyond the simple script the film is well shot, well made and well cast with a pre-Jack Sparrow Johnny Depp convincing as a cockney copper, bizarre though the decision to have Abberline chase the dragon may be; the original version of the character is very different. Heather Graham impressed as Mary, Ian Holm is superb as Gull, Robbie Coltrane is the perfect sidekick and the late Ian Tichardson is a good laugh as Abbeline’s stupid Freemason boss. It’s a perfectly decent film in many ways, although inevitably it dwells on the horrible murders of women. But I think inevitably it looks shallow, perhaps unfairly given what can fit into two hours, than the source material.

Angel: Shells

"My world is gone."

"Now you know how I feel..."

Killing Fred was a brave move and a huge one. She was a hugely likeable and universally adored character, killed much as Tara had been in Buffy- Wes, like Willow, had only just got together with the love of his life before her cruel and pointless death the following episode. So far, so structurally similar. But Wes is now a harder character, not in a dark Willow sense but in the sense that something inside him has died. Worse, Fred may be dead but her body is now occupied by Illyria, an Old One seemly fond of the east coast of the Adriatic. And, just to rub it in this new character is played with chilling effect by Amy Acker, showing her phenomenal range as an actress.

Illyria is, of course, a baddie, and naturally she has an evil plan which this episode consists of her trying to execute. But, of course, her kingdom and her army have long gone, and she has no purpose. Her resurrection, and Fred's death, were both meaningless, much like Knox's life, shaped by his empty faith that brings him nothing. It's all very bleak. But, bravely, the episode ends by trying to get us to emphasise with Illyria along with Wesley, who has as much reason to hate her as anyone.

It's certainly courageous to make such a bold move as killing Fred and then tr y to get us to emphasise with her killer, who is played by the same actress. Certainly the main cast are devastated. Lorne can't deal with it at all. Wesley is changed, cold-hearted in a world without Fred, shooting Knox dead and stabbing Gunn when he finds out the truth. As for poor Gunn... this is where his betrayal is exposed, and he's devastated.

This isn't an episode to like, but one to hugely admire. Extraordinary television.

Big Hero 6 (2014)

 "That is both disgusting and awesome..."

A somewhat unusual Marvel film here, but an inevitable consequence of said comics giant being swallowed by the greedy jaws of Disney. Awesome Stan Lee cameo aside, the obscure Marvel origins are minimised in order to make a Disney kids' film, and the result works well.

Hence there's no Silver Samurai and no Sunfire. The setting is not Japan but the amusingly named "San Francokyo". But it's all very Disney with the plot, characters and humour having all the kid-friendly charm we might expect. So Hiro inevitably becomes the, er, hero while Baymax becomes the kind of cute robot we might also expect from Disney. I don't know the source material myself (I Googled it; 1998 is well after my comics-reading days) but it adapts amazingly well to the modern house style of a Disney kids' film.

There are some awesome ideas, like the Microbots (wasn't there something like these in the Bob Budiansky Transformers comics in the '80s?), Alan Tudyk as the (spoilers) red herring and all the cool robotics. But it's a heartwarming tale of a boy coming to terms with grief at its, er, heart while at the same time, with the character of Professor Callaghan, showing us the terrible things that grief can make us do. Plus, of course, Hiro gets five, yes five, comedy superhero sidekicks (because that's what they are) with powers.

It's definitely a Disney kids' film which will appeal mainly to kids (not Little Miss Llamastrangler, sadly; it is apparently lacking in princesses), but is a charmingly different little superhero film.

The Gifted: Season 1, Episode 12 and 13- eXtraction and X-Roads

“I’m the only person in this family who’s actually proud to be a Von Strucker!”

...

“The X-Men made a mistake. This is who I am”

The finale was broadcast, for some reason, as a feature length double bill, so I’m treating it as such. And... well, it had a few surprises, but... meh. I’ll probably end up seeing the next season before too long but only because Mrs Llamastrangler is happy to watch it with me. It’s lucky to have that reprieve, because a promising start has been wasted in becoming a predictable, plodding, repetitive programme in which the characters never seem to actually drive the narrative.

The penultimate episode focuses on the Mutant Underground trying to kidnap Campbell at some anti-Mutant event in North Carolina while Reed and co try to find his mother, Cagney from Cagney & Lacey, to keep her safe from bad old Sentinel Services. But not much happens other than the usual angst- Andy is increasingly wondering whether his ancestors had the right idea, putting him at odds with the rest of the family, while Lorna and Marcos continue to clash over ethics as Lorna gets constantly reminded of who her father is. It’s all somewhat tedious aside from an in-joke about Sentinel Services originally intending to use robots but not doing so for, presumably, budgetary reasons.

We also have hints that John and Clarice are going to get together as at first he berates her over her Brotherhood ("of Evil Mutants") past, and then apologises later and gets a snog. I bet they will. We end with the attack on the conference going all wrong.

The final "episode" concerns the siege of Mutant Underground's HQ by Sentinel Services and later the Hounds while Polaris nips off to assassinate Campbell and his nasty senator friend and, praise be, the reset button remains unpressed. Stuff actually happens. The Struckers all save the day, evacuating everyone; Marcos, with Blink and John, fails to stop Lorna from dramatically turning a plane full of people into a fireball; Jace quits. All this and a face with "J. Kirby" written on it. And then we get the dramatic finale in which Lorna and the Frosts turn up and convince half the mutants to join them... including Andy.

It's an effective finale, yes. But it feels as if the series has been treading water for episodes upon episodes and only because it's the finale are things actually allowed to happen. That isn't in the grand Chris Claremont X-Men tradition; nor is it good episodic television. Please do better next season. A writer's room can be a creative thung but this very much feels written by committee.

The Maltese Falcon (1941)

“You... you imbecile. You bloated idiot. You stupid fat-head, you."

This film may be a remake, and I may have a policy of not seeing remakes before originals, but you have to draw the line somewhere; the original version of this is ancient and obscure, and in any case I’d say both are just different adaptations of the same novel so the argument doesn’t apply.

This film is, I hope you’re not surprised to read, jaw-droppingly good. I’m well-verses with the works of Raymond Chandler, but less so with Dashiell Hammett whom I haven’t read at all. The genre, and Spade himself, feel very much straight out of the splendid novels of Chandler, though; femme fatales; a jaded, cynical, witty but secretly moral hero; people trying to get along in an imperfect and sinful world; hats and/or cigarettes everywhere. And at the centre of it all is the sublime Humphrey Bogart. To my shame, this is the first film of his that I’ve seen. It won’t be the last.  And the entire cast is superb.

The film is brilliantly shot, too, by the young John Huston; there are some particularly brilliant shots. I noticed that when Sam picks up the phone to hear of Archer’s death we first see only the phone, then his hand. Only later do we see Sam’s face.

The plot is complex but clearly told and engaging; the dialogue is amazing; the characters gripping; the conclusion deeply satisfying. This is a movie everyone should see.

The Gifted- Season 1, Episode 11: 3 x 1

“They got the job done."

"Is that all that matters?"

Sigh. After an episode that seemed to change the status quo it's back to an episode of the same arguments and the same running around that we've seen all season. Can something happen please?

I mean, it's good to have the Hellfire Club around, although it's unclear what they exist for in this continuity, and the Frost sisters aren't cool, although apparently they aren't Emma but the Cuckoo Sisters, from well after my time in the comics. It's also great to have the heavy hint that Polaris is Magneto's daughter. But, I mean, really? Do we need the Struckers to have another family argument about what to do until daddy knows best and they all try to flee to Mexico, only to have plot convenience force them back to the Mutant Underground? Do we need the exciting revelation that is the Cuckoo Sisters to be wasted as a pretext for the Mutant Underground to have yet another bloody debate and do sod all? Do we need Campbell's big evil plan to turn out to just be mutants combining their powers?

It's beginning to feel, after a promising few episodes, that nobody here has any real agency except the Cuckoo Sisters, who we've only just bloody met. The parallel funeral sequences achieve little to highlight what flat and shallow ciphers both Polaris and, especially, Jace have become. Does Jace have moral doubts or doesn't he? There's no bloody consistency from episode to episode.

This series looked promising but I have m doubts about whether it's really going anywhere. I'll give it until the end of the season and see.

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016)

“ Ding dong, the god is dead.”

 I'm struggling to think of any film I've ever seen that's worse than this two and a half hours of empty, cynical, pointless drivel. The only consolation is that I have this blog and at least I get to put thid film over my knee and give it a sound spanking. I pity those who had to see this film without such an outlet.

So why so execrably awful? Well, there’s the obvious things which have often been pointed out- unlike Marvel, who carefully nurtured all the main characters in their individual films before bringing them all together in The Avengers, DC saw fit to follow the flawed but ok Man of Steel with this- a continuity-heavy crossover with a Batman we haven’t properly met, no soul and a music video sensibility of scene following scene at a bewildering pace without slowing down so we can get to know and care about the characters.

Then there’s the direction from alleged pervert Zack Snyder- technically well done, competent, but devoid of any individual style or personality. But worse than any of this is the message of the film. We expect Hotham, and the world of the Batman, to have a certain darkness, although branding people is a bit much. Yes, it’s nice to have an older, veteran, perhaps cynical Batman from the start. But Superman should be a contrast yet he’s depicted as a self-doubting throwback to less cynical times, a throwback to liberal times who is stranded in that godawful year 2016. But that’s lazy; the character of Dioetman is essentially the optimistic creation of two idealistic Jewish youngsters in the far darker days of 1938. The character of Superman has seen off much bigger bastards than Trump and Brexit and I hate the implication that morality and liberalism are outmoded values in these right wing, nativist days- and yes, those placards held by the anti-Superman protesters outside Congress are very anti-immigrant- where the simple fact is that we liberals can, and will, smash their stupid faces in. To suggest otherwise is not only to misunderstand and disrespect the character of Superman but send a very cynical political message that nothing matters and there’s no point. “No one stays good in this world”, says Superman.

So, yeah, I hate what this film is saying. But that’s not all; it’s over-complicated, confusing fanwank where all the attempts to make you sympathise with the characters fail both because of the clinical style and the fact that we’ve yet to get to know these characters- the only character here who is actually likeable is Laurence Fishburne’s delightfully quotable Perry White. Oh, and Luthor. I love Jesse Eisenberg’s witty, fast-talking Luthor, an eccentric Nietzchean, er, “superman”. But the film is full of good actors who are either woefully miscast- Jeremy Irons and, yes, Ben Affleck- or playing shallow, badly written characters. It’s a terrible script, a terrible film and a terrible basis for a cinematic universe. Even Justice League is not quite so bad as this.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008)

“I just don't like getting old!

This is an odd film, only loosely based on the F. Scott Fitzgerald short story on which it's based, which takes its central conceit- a man who is born old and lives life backwards- almost as an incidental detail at times and feels just as much, if not more so, a chronicle of the short twentieth century from 1918 to 2004.

The non-linear narrative is clever, as a dying Daisy has her daughter read Benjamin's diary to her as Hurricane Katrina approaches. Thus we have two perhaps unreliable narrators, gaps, different pints of view, a narrative which is never coded as neutral or omniscient. The fairytale quality is constant, from the haunting tale of the blind clockmaker who makes a clock to bring back his dead son to the reading aloud in the present day. Brad Pitt is an ok star, f an inevitable one for a David Fincher film, with Cate Blanchett outshining him a little.

Inevitably there's a picaresque quality, and the sense that the framing of the film, as a tragic love story between Benjamin and Daisy, is just one complex way of looking at that big, complex thing that is life. There's a rather interesting sequence in which Ben, narrating, details a huge number of ordinary human actions from various different Parisians that cause Daisy to be hit by a car and her ballet career to end. And yet, later, it turns out that Caroline was never aware of her mother's illustrious career. We lead multiple lives, all of us.

A thoughtful and philosophical film, then, if an odd one. But one that has, I think, a lot to say beneath its surface.

Angel: A Hole in the World

"I am not gonna be cut down by some monster flu! I'm better than that!"

I haven't felt like this since Tara died. Whedon, you magnificent bastard.

The unfair thing, and of course the point, is that poor Fred doesn't even get a heroic death. She just gets ill and dies. No miracle cure. Just death and heartbreak. But then isn't that how most of us will die?

There are two things from the beginning that make us fear something bad. The first is that we begin with a flashback to teenage Fred, just a handful of years ago. The other is the caption "written and directed by Joss Whedon", which always leads to an episode which invariably is bloody good and usually is significant. This episode is both, of course, with sparkling dialogue and richly textured character moments interwoven with masterful storytelling. Hence Knox was the evil Illyria acolyte all along, who chose Fred as host body for his god because he loved her. Hence the mummy got through customs because of a legal document Gunn signed in order to be lawyered up again last episode- Wolfram and Hart is indeed corrupting them all. Hence the whole cavemen vs. astronauts thing permeating the episode, and the splendid Angel/Spike double act. Hence Gunn being well and truly told that the Senior Partners are not his friends to call upon for favours. This script is a cut above.

As with his other episode this season, Conviction, the title is a glorious pun, But no one is laughing. This is a brutal assault on the heartstrings that draws out the heartbreak, for us and for Wesley and, indeed, for everyone, as cruelly as possible. Fred's last moments are extraordinary. So is the whole thing. Dammit, I am not ok after watching this...

Angel: Smile Time

"You're a wee little puppet man!"

This is obviously the best episode ever. Let’s get that right out there. I mean, what’s not to adore? A bunch of evil Sesame Street puppets plotting to steal the life force of innocent kids for to sell to Hell for a massive profit; puppets controlling the puppeteer, played by David Fury himself... oh, and of course there’s little puppet Angel. And the trying-not-to-laugh reactions of the hand. And Spike’s reaction. Especially Spike’s reaction.

But that’s not all. There’s an interesting scene where the puppeteer skews Gunn and Lorne (finally getting a decent role) for working for an organisation that gets guilty people off and is, shall we say, somewhat lacking in ethics. We have Gunn continuing to have his legal upgrade fade away, taking away his purpose in life and leading to, as it gets called, Flowers for Algernon syndrome. He gets offered a deal with the devil for a permanent upgrade and next time we see him he seems to be lawyered up again- what happened?

Then there’s Nina, back again as it’s that time of the month, and besotted with Angel, whose awkward handling of this is quite hilarious, as is the scene where Wes tells him like it is, while himself completely failing to notice that Fred has now dumped Knox and is blatantly signalling at him. So it’s heartearming to see Angel and Nina finally agreeing to a date, and the punch the air moment that is that kiss between Fred and Wes.

Now, Mr. Whedon... I can’t help remembering what you did after Willow and Rara got back together so joyously in Buffy. You’re not about to do anything, well, evil are you?

Angel: Why We Fight

"You're a Nazi!"

"What? Oh, no, I just ate one."

Meh. Well, there had to be an episode that failed to impress at some point during this otherwise excellent season. This episode, well it's just dull filler.

Submarines can be the scene of taut, exciting thrillers, but not here. I'm not sure whether it's the script or the direction, but the location is not so much atmospherically claustrophobic as limited, grey and dull. And, much as I love flashbacks, what's the relevance of all this? Yes, it's fun to see Spike interrogating Nazis. It's fun to see an old, supposedly powerful vampire who looks just like Nosferatu, an obvious reference. But none of this needs a whole episode.

Worse, the present day sequences, with Lawson taking Angel's mates hostage in a half-hearted sort of way before an obligatory so-so fight at the end, is token in the extreme. So what's the point of all this? Oh, it's to show that Angel once sired someone, in extreme circumstances, after regaining his soul. That's it. It has no wider relevance to anything lse and no doubt will never be referred to again.

So is there anything we can salvage? Well, it's confirmed Eve is gone, and the White Room liaison to the Senior Partners has indeed vanished too. And what's that lapse of memory from Gunn? Is his lawyer brain beginning to fade now the Senior Partners are cut off...? Interesting, but all this just reiterates stuff currently happening. There can be no episode duller and more skippable than this.

See No Evil (2006)

“The eyes are the windows of the soul...”

This is a somewhat obscure little horror film, somewhat gory, starring a wrestler as the baddies and with no stars; the most famous member of the cast is arguably character actress Rachael Taylor. But the direction is superb and suspenseful, and this short little claustrophobic thriller doesn’t outstay it’s welcome.

There are superficial similarities to Psycho- the action takes place in a hotel and the baddie is under the strong influence of his creepy and deeply abusive mother. But the more direct influence is perhaps Friday the 13th, although this is a far superior slasher to anything I’ve seen so far in that wretched franchise.

A bunch of convicts are barely introduced (although I like the captions of what they’re in for) before they start being picked off, but surprisingly the character development is pretty good in spite of this. The camera is constantly teasing us, and the levels of gore are just about right, and exist alongside the suspense and not instead of it.

The main distinguishing feature of this film, of course, is that Jacob the baddie has a thing for gouging people’s eyes out with his thumbs and keeping them in jars. Lovely. There’s also a fair bit of dragging women by their hair and using a carrier bear trap to inflict graphic injuries that remind me of Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Perhaps best of all are the dogs who gleefully eat the wounds of the injured and provide the film with an amusing coda. I knew there was a good reason I’m a cat person.

A pretty good thriller, then, and a much better watch than many which are more well-known.

RoboCop 3 (1993)

"We're dead, you stupid slag!"

This final film in the series is, I see, not much liked. And yes, diminishing returns are indeed a thing here with the weakest of the trilogy. But it’s not bad. Well, not that bad.

The general storyline is pretty damn good and deals with the right sort of themes- OCP is now fully under Japanese control, because it’s the early ‘90s and Japanese corporate domination of America in the near future is very much a thing. OCP are peddling some pie in the sky fantasy of a new 1950s utopian city to encourage people to leave their home while employing nasty mercenaries to evict while neighbourhoods just for profit, while there’s a big Japanese sort of ninja-sequel end of level boss lurking in the wings.

Robert John Burke is as good a replacement for Peter Walker as you’re likely to get, and Rip Torn is always good to see. It’s great to see a lot of the usual guest cast, with the Sarge particularly getting to shine. Also, I love the little girl reprogramming ED-209, John Castle as an evil villain straight out of Thatcher’s cabinet, and Nancy gets a meaningful death. This isn’t a bad film.

So why is it not as good as it could be? Well, the script is pretty good, and has the right kind of cynical political subtext, but the dark humour is gone. And the direction, while competent, is action film direction and lacks the visual wit we have come to expect. You have to say the film is well made, the script isn’t bad, but the end result is a little disappointing.

King Kong (1933)

“It was beauty killed the beast."

I’d seen this film before, of course- it’s King Kong- but not for many, many years. It’s an awesome tour de force of stop motion awesomeness, and I don’t care either how jerky it is or, indeed, how stilted the acting is. It’s a film all about the set pieces with Kong and the dinosaurs- so we get a stegosaurus, a plesiosaur and a, er, carnivorous long-necked sauropod that snatches a bloke from a tree and eats him. But even more it’s about Kong vs. the tyrannosaurus, Kong vs. the pterosaur, Kong vs. the snake, Kong going wild in New York and combing up the sparkly new Empire State Building, only to be finally shot down by some state of the art modern biplanes.

All that is what the film is about, and why you have to declare it a triumph, dodgy acting and pulp storytelling notwithstanding. I have to except Fay Wray from the “dodgy acting” comment, though- she’s natural, charismatic and splendidly flirtatious throughout. The other actors are generally outshone by the stop motion models, but that’s ok. It’s not about them.

Of course, there are things that raise an eyebrow, such as casting African Americans as the natives of an island south west of Sumatra, which would more likely be inhabited by Polynesians. There’s the vague racism of the Chinese crewman, not to mention the “savage native” trope but, hey, it’s 1933. There’s Jack’s chat up line “Say, I guess I love you”, which had me laughing out loud. And then there’s the fact that Denham essentially commits genicide upon the native just for the sake of his own glory. There they are, safe from the dangers of the island in their peninsula behind their wall, and then along comes Denham to destroy their only protection and leave them to probably all be eaten, including all those cute little kids.

It’s a bit slow, the acting is a bit stilted, but this is truly a special effect classic with some glorious set pieces that deserves its place in cinematic history.

Angel: You're Welcome

"She's evil, you gormless tit!"

So we finally get to say a proper goodbye to both the magnificent Cordelia Chase and the brilliant Charisma Carpenter. I will miss them both. Angel without Cordy was- perhaps is- unthinkable. I don’t know what happened behind the scenes beyond the pregnancy to enforce her departure, but I’m glad she came back for a good send-off.

And a send-off it is. We begin with Angel losing the will to continue at Wolfram & Hart and deciding to quit, despite strong opposition from a still very fulfilled Gunn, until he is interrupted by a phone call about the still comatose Cordelia, the details of which we don’t hear. And, when the gang visits her to find an awake and well and hugging Cordy we only get a quick dismissive mention of the dying woman in her room, a nice bit of misdirection.

It’s good to see all the touching reunions, but Cordy is somewhat appalled to see the deal with the devil that has taken place- I love the way that as soon as she says this a Red Devil shakes Angel’s hand and says “Racquetball Thursday?”- and perhaps even more disturbed to see an Angel who seems to be losing his Mojo. There’s a touching scene where Angel sees her watching that video Doyle made all that time ago, the “first soldier down”, she gets to apologise to Wes about Lilah, and it isn’t long before Cordy and co work out just how Spike has been used by Eve and Lindsey. The fight between Angel and Lindsey that follows is all a metaphor for Angel and his mojo; when he rediscovers it, he wins, and that’s because of Cordy.

Eve is in trouble, and I love Harmony’s cheerful offer to torture her. But as Lindsey is grabbed by the irate Senior Partners and Eve is sent away it seems that all is well for the moment, and it’s tome for the pub, the gang all in good spirits. Angel and Cordy have a quick hug before she tells him she can’t stay, and then they finally get a snog. And then the phone call happens, and she’s been dead all this time. She never woke up. Second soldier down. What an episode.

Angel: Damage

"Danny, we're gonna need a whip..."

A Spike episode, then, sort of, after an unusual beginning with a super-strong disturbed woman escaping from a mental institution, but also one that packs a powerful punch in showing us just how Angel and his gang are now perceived with all the moral compromises they have to make. Plus we have the revelation that the still very fulfilled Gunn plays golf with lots of district attorneys these days.

Dana is not possessed as the gang first theorise but is, cleverly, a slayer, just one who experienced the murder of her family and horrible torture as a child so she’s both dangerously insane and super strong. In a clever piece of misdirection we are shown in flashback that the perpetrator was Spike but, although we know Spike will have committed atrocities in the past, it has to be shown here that these are just fake memories, mixed with memories of the two slayers he killed. We can’t actually look too closely at the reality of such atrocities once perpetrated by a character we've come to like. Yet it’s a nice touch that Spike should acknowledge, after his rescue, that he deserved what he got. He may not have committed this terrible crime but he committed plenty of others. It’s also interesting to see how he reflects on the morality of his actions- to him, killing and cruelty was just for thrills and he didn’t think much about the human cost, while for the chillingly sadistic Angelus the human cost was the very attraction. Brr.

All very good character stuff, then. But I do find it a little disturbing that Angel can raise themes of child abuse and murder and not really do much with them, using such themes as part of the character development of a reformed villain and not focusing much on the victim. I’m not sure I like that.

There’s a comedy contrast in the form of someone sent by Giles as soon as it’s realised they’re dealing with a Slayer... Andrew. In all his comedy glory, and he even gets one of his highly amusing mansplaining scenes. He’s amazed to see Spike alive, something which will certainly be related to Buffy, and spends most of the episode as comedy sidekick. Except, at the end, he and his Slayer army seize Dana by force, saying “Think we’re just gonna let you take her back to your evil stronghold?” and that “Nobody in our camp trusts you any more.” It’s a brutal blow. And yet another superb episode if not for the iffy treatment of the theme.

Angel: Soul Purpose

"No offence, Mr.Vader, but I've got no itch to join the evil empire."

An interesting episode, this; directed by David Boreanaz while also being very much an episode about Angel himself, his new insecurities about the Shanshu Prophecy and Spike, and his ethical problems with the power he now wields. I love the dream sequences, and the opening is clever, reconstructing the scene with the cup of suffering from a couple of episodes ago but then diverging from it in dreamlike fashion.

Meanwhile there’s an interesting B plot in which Lindsey approaches Spike, who doesn’t know him, pretending to be called “Doyle” and to have visions of people needing help, slowly pushing Spike into the role Angel has now left but while maintaining a subtle control over him, all simultaneously with pushing Angel down. It seems his intention is to trick the Senior Partners into thinking Spike and not Angel is indeed the prophesied one- and those tattoos which the horny Eve finds so sexy are magically preventing them from seeing him. This is a nice little twist, especially with the ironic use of the show’s tropes.

Wesley and Gunn are in their element with theirs Machiavellian plans and plots, but I think their tendency to act outside Angel’s authority is something very much not confined to just this episode. And certainly the whole team just allows themselves to be distracted by their roles, manipulated by Eve, allowing the parasite to feed on Angel. It was Lindsay who sent Spike both the amulet and the parcel, and he and Eve appear to be successfully manipulating everyone- except Spike. Ever the rebel, it is he who rescues Angel and I think his speech to Gunn and Wesley carries a lot of weight; he’s the hero here, and in D&D language he’s very much changed from chaotic evil to chaotic good. He doesn’t like Wolfram and Hart with it’s lawful evil ways. Spike is being treated as the actual hero even by the narrative.

We end with Eve under suspicion but perhaps succeeding in fomenting discord. A superb episode and, perhaps, a pivotal one.

Angel: Harm's Way

"Once again keeping corporate America safe from evil..."

It’s good that we get a Harmony episode; the character would be sort of wasted otherwise. And it’s a superbly crafted farce where Harmony, who has gone a whole eight months without killing anyone, finds herself waking up with no memory of the hours before bedside and with a dead man in her bed who has been vamped to death. Oops.

It’s interesting to see how sad Harmony’s life is, though- unable to hack it as an evil vampire gang leader, she now struggles in a corporate nine-to-five existence where she is friendless and unappreciated, until being nearly framed and killed by a jealous colleagues makes her realise she means something, sort of. It may not be deep stuff but then neither is Harmony, and her sudden demotion from popular to friendless is almost sad, but Harmony has always been the kind of comedy character who is given lines like “You can teach me about life, and I can teach you to dress better.”

The background of the easily offended feuding demons is also funny, but also further cements our impression of lawyered up Gunn as highly efficient and fulfilled professional. And Spike, newly corporeal, realises he can’t actually bugger off to Buffy so soon after his sacrifice without rendering his sacrifice meaningless. There’s a mild whiff of plot convenience to this, but it makes sense.

I like these fluffy episodes. And I’m conscious there are only so many left...

Audition (1999)

“All words are lies. Pain doesn't lie."

This is a famously disturbing horror film that it’s taken me twenty years to see (1999 being twenty years ago is wrong on all sorts of levels) and it’s well worth it. A sweet if gently misogynistic drama for most of its length, the film suddenly piles on the torture towards the end as all the unthinking misogyny of the earlier scenes gets its extremely painful comeuppance. This is an interesting film to see in the wake of #MeToo.

The plot is simple; lonely widower Aoyama wants a new wife, the subtext being that he wants her to do all the traditional feminine jobs of looking after him and leaving him just to work, while needing to be accomplished herself. At a friend’s suggestion he takes part in a series of auditions for a part in a film which never happens, at which the women are asked a series of bizarre and impertinent questions by their male interlocutors.

Aside from the auditions themselves, though, the misogyny is constant but subtle as Aoyama settles on Asami, a mysterious woman whose true past and true proclivities and abused past are hidden behind an exterior that seems to be quite passive and traditionally feminine. And then she disappears, things are not quite right, the direction turns very unnerving and adopts the grammar of the horror film, and the torture begins. A haunting and highly effective film with a serious point, and the harsh revenge of the abused and objectified woman. Superb, and Eihi Shiina is magnificently disturbing.

Trainspotting (1996)

"I haven't felt that good since Archie Gemmill scored against Holland in 1978."

This is one of my favourite films of all times, and it’s quite inexcusable that I’ve waited until I’m 550-odd films in to blog it. It’s superb; creTively directed, delightfully non-linear in its narration in a very post-Pulp Fiction way, perfectly cast, hilarious, devastating, and based on Irvine Welsh’s truly awesome novel.

Watching it again for the umpteenth fine, although for the first time in at least fifteen years, is how the charming, intelligent, outwardly sympathetic Mark Renton is actually a complete bastard. Yes, he’s complicit in the neglect and death of baby Dawn after he introduces the baby’s mother to heroin, but at least he’s not a parent. Yes, it’s unfair that Spud goes to prison and not his middle class self. Yes, he makes a lot of money in a big heroin deal, although as he doesn’t betray Spud I don’t think he needs feel any guilt about double crossing Sick Boy or Bregbie. No; they deserved all they got. But Tommy? He loses his girlfriend because Renton tricks him into letting him have a video having sex with Lizzie, causing Lizzie to leave him. Then the clean-living Tommy, devastated, asks Renton for heroin, which he gets. All this directly leads to AIDS and his horrible death, which is entirely Renton’s fault. But he’s negative.

Renton may have the privileges that come with being bareTir, but he’s as much of a bastard as anyone in the film. It’s just that he gets to cover it up with his middle class ways. And I bet none of his mates would have had the option of moving to London and making loads of money in the property business.

Sick Boy, despite of his amusing obsession with Sean Connery and his despair at Dawn’s death, is a grasping, cynical, amoral bastard. Begbie is a a monster of the type that far too many blokes have in their social circles. But Renton is as bad as any of them, and I think that’s what Welsh and Danny Boyle I tend us to conclude.

Still one of the greatest film ever made. I love the wit, I love the style, I love the worst toilet in Scotland, I love the nostalgic glimpse of a branch of John Menzies. And the soundtrack is awesome.

Angel: Destiny

"Try staking your mother when she's coming on to you!"

"Wow, that explains a lot...!

Well, this is certainly an arc episode; before we even get the titles Spike received a parcel that goes flash and suddenly returns him to corporeality. Enter eating, drinking, shagging Harmony and, as foreshadowed a couple of episodes ago, a sudden ambiguity over exactly who the Shanshu prophecy nw applies to.

This causes a certain amount of problems with reality in order to create some kind of external threat, and this is solved suddenly at the end by some deus ex machina from the Senior Partners. But that’s ok; none of that is the real focus. It’s the effect on both Angel and Spike on realising that the Shanshu prophecy could now apply to either of them, and the fact that Spike defeats Angel at the end on Sirk’s  Little wild goose chase; he wants it more. And, along with all the flashbacks from 1880 with the two of them, Dru, and the awkward absence of Darla, this is a kind of culmination of a very long running struggle between the two of them, and something which I suspect may go on to define the season.

Other characters are there too, of course, although Wes is on leave. Gunn is increasingly confident and motivated, and Angel instinctively puts him in charge when he nips off to Death Valley. Lorne as a character is now starting to seem worryingly underserved this season. And the White Room is gone, along with the link to the Senior Partners.

The ending is fantastic, though- after spending much of the episode trying to convince everyone that “I’m not the bad guy”, she returns home to reveal that she’s personally behind the wild goose chase and she has a partner. Lindsey...

Angel: Lineage

"Sex with robots is more common than people think."

So it’s a proper Wesley episode, we get to meet Wesley’s overbearing dad, sort of, and he’s played by the actual dad of Betty from Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em. Life can be delightfully random sometimes.

It’s clear, seeing how flustered and klutzy Wes gets with his dad around that his upbringing has a lot to do with how awkward he was when we first met him but, as the pre-titles clearly shows, he’s slowly but surely become increasingly badass. Until his Dad turns up. And turns out to be an evil robot, so the fact that Wes ends up killing him is a cheat, sort of. But that’s fine, I think; we’ve only just met Roger Wyndham-Price. It’s not as though a regular character has died and been brought back. And the episode does it’s job of fleshing our Wesley more, and successfully, while further developing the love triangle between him, Fred and Knox.

There’s also suspicious behaviour from Eve; Spike has her number, and she blatantly tries to turn Angel against Wes to the point of bringing up a certain baby stealing incident, but this backfired with Angel coming to appreciate how Wes will do the right thing no matter what the cost, a quality he admires.

A nice, slow character episode then, if a rather deep one. I suspect fireworks next...

Bohemian Rhapsody (2018)

“I pity your wife if you think six minutes is a long time."

I like Queen. Unlike Mrs Llamastrangler I wouldn't say they're my favourite band or anything- I like this kind of polished, musicianlike rock and Freddie Mercury's voice is amazing, but punk needed to happen and I prefer the less technical likes of Chris Cornell (RIP) and Mark Lanegan to the late Mr Bulsara. Still, they were of course awesome, and a biopic is clearly overdue.

It’s a very straight biopic, with Gwilym Lee in particular doing a superb Brian May impression, but the plaudits have to  belong to Rami Malek, who simply becomes Freddie Mercury in an extraordinary performance. But the film takes us from the beginnings of the band to Live Aid gradually, missing out what has to be missed out for time reasons but showing us an awful lot. The focus is on Freddie, of course, from the racism he experienced in his youth to his relationship with his Parsee Zoroastrian family to the decadence to a dramatically impactful AIDS diagnosis just before Live Aid, using artistic licence to ignore the fact he wasn’t actually diagnosed until 1987, but rightly so. Other highlights include Mike Myers as the man who lost Queen, and the ambiguous relationship between Freddie and Mary which is played for pathos here.

The film has been criticised, not without justice, for portraying Freddie’s gay lifestyle as a decadent distraction, and it’s certaibly odd to see the excess and partying as something quite divorced from rock ‘n’ roll. But perhaps we should be careful to necessarily equate promiscuity and the leather subculture of the time with being gay. It’s still a hard criticism to answer, though.

This film isn’t particularly deep or meaningful; it’s a straightforward rock biopic, with the facts reshaped for medidramatic effect and for an emotional finish, but it’s very well done and the sort of rock biopic that needs to exist. I rather enjoyed it.

Transformers: The Movie (1986)

"Bah weep graahah weep ni ni bong."

I was born in 1977. Thus I care nothing for anything other than what is now called "Generation One". I'm firm in my belief, having rewatched bits as an adult, that the TV cartoon was casually tossed away crap, far inferior to the comics which were the true carriers of the flame. And, being British, I'm lucky enough to have been blessed with Simon Furman from early on- we got Target: 2006. And yet this film (comics canon!) is a huge part of my childhood, watched and rewatched many times. This time I watch with a critical eye- and no little trepidation.

So is it actually any good if you strip away the nostalgia? Well, yes, much as its roots as a cynical advert for toys are far more visible to me at forty-one than they were at nine. It has a truly awesome soundtrack, for one thing, and opening titles that, at one point, seem suspiciously to be channelling Tom Baker era Doctor Who title sequence tunnel. It has Orson Bloody Welles, for another. Unicron is, of course, blatantly based on Galactus, and for someone supposed to be planet-sized his scale compared to various Transformers isn't very convincing. But yes, destroying a world at the start creates a certain epic scale.

This film was, of course, planned far earlier than 1986, so the deaths of so many early Autobots- Prowl, Ironhide and Brawn among them- seems very cynical. Kids, all your favourite toys are dead. Now get your parents to buy some new ones. And why does this Decepticon attack happen to suddenly kill loads of Autobots where countless previous attacks haven't?

Anyway, we get a big cinematic battle for Autobot City- which evokes the toy Metroplex without actually being it- and the umpteenth epic battle between Optimus Prime and Megatron which this time happens to result in a dead Oppy (awww!), who promptly hands over the Creation Matrix to wet drip Ultra Magnus, and a badly injured Megatron  Then, inside a bizarrely large Astrotrain, a load of injured Deceptcons are jettisoned- the ever-awesome Starscream (Chris Latta was a legend) gets rid of Megatron, of course, but also, I spotted, Bombshell, Skywarp, Thundercracker and Shrapnel, at least. So we have Unicron upgrading Megatron to the much tougher Galvatron and his voice from Frank Welker to the much more famous Leonard Nimoy; not sure how this works diagetically.

Anyway, we get a few set pieces and some picaresque adventure on various planets inhabited by sentient robots. (Is this because the Singularity eventually happens within every technological civilisation and life is ultimately replaced by AI? I'm overthinking this, aren't I?) This gives us a chance to highlight new character such as Springer (who clearly has the hots for poor Arcee), and especially Hot Rod and Kup, who are in the shops now, kids. It also gives us the ridiculous idea of the TV-talking Junkions, silly dancing, Eric Idle and Weird Al Yankovic, so it's not all bad, even if that stupid "me Grimlock" way of talking for the Dinobots is utterly cringeworthy.

The ending, with Hot Rod becoming the Autobot messiah, is obviously lifted straight from all them legends about young Arthur pulling the sword out of the stone, but his defeat of first Galvatron and then Unicron is deeply satisfying, even if it also inexplicably leads to a sudden Cybertronian utopia. Have all the Decepticons been ethnically cleansed off screen or something?

This film is at once very, very silly, extremely cynical and deeply awesome all at once. I loved every frame in spite of everything.

Iron Man 3 (2013)

“Gods, aliens, other dimensions- I’m just a man in a can.”

 I rather liked this film the first time I saw it. And this time around it still struck me as well-directed, very much so in fact, well acted and characterised with Downey and Paltrow as superb as ever. And perhaps this time around the identity of the “Mandarin” was less of a surprise. But the film seems to be lacking something.

Perhaps it’s the lack of a real supervillain. Perhaps it’s the deliberately small scale of the film (compared to Tony’s last outing, at least) with his anxiety attacks in the wake of the events of The Avengers- which is actually a good character point, Tony Stark bring the kind of rich, powerful, arrogant type who needs vulnerabilities to remain sympathetic, although Downey’s huge charisma does a huge job on its own. But ultimately the film feels entertaining but, well, insubstantial by MCU standards. And it never quite convinces how he gives up all the armour at the end.

There are some very good bits. The twist with the Mandarin is brilliant, and Ben Kingsley gives us a superb comic turn, and the Mandarin videos themselves are a superb visual riff on the iconography if the “War on Terror” which feels oddly retro six years later. Guy Pearce is ok as Killian, although his accent slips in places. Don Cheadle further cements himself as a mainstay. And there’s a lot of fun with armour, and various bits of it. But this film is unexpectedly inconsequential. Even the post-credits sequence is a bit of a damp squib.

Angel: The Cautionary Tale of Numero Cinco

"Hermanos! The Devil has built a robot!"

This is, I suppose, as bog standard and disposable as episodes of Angel get. It certainly feels that way. And yet it’s still bloody good telly and masterful in its use of character. As I’ve become fond of saying, if this is a disposable episode then colour me impressed.

The tale of Number Five is heartwarming enough, entertaining, fun, and a good hook for an episode. I’m a little puzzled as to why Holland Manners would headhunt him personally and then have him spend fifty years in a menial job, but meh. And what are these menial internal nail jobs anyway? You see them everywhere in American films and telly but they must surely have been rendered extinct by email. Perhaps even in 2003 they would surely be well on the way out?

Anyway, all the stuff with the wrestlers and Aztec demon is fun, even for those of us who do t live on a country bordering Mexico and who don’t necessarily know much about the culture. It works as an A story. But I think the story is really about Angel and his motivation to keep being a hero. At the start we see him disengaged, a contrast to Gunn who loves getting up in the morning now he can use his lawyer superpowers to do good and make a difference. The problem is, of course, that he’s lost faith in the Shanshu prophecy, but the events of the episode cause him to perhaps rekindle that faith. All this Shanshu stuff is going to be important soon then. And it must apply to Angel, apparently, as Spike is a ghost...

This is perhaps my least favourite episode of the season so far. And it’s still bloody excellent.

The Happytime Murders (2018)

“I never knocked a guy out with his own balls before..."

Well then. I doubt, somehow, that that puppet sex scene will ever be topped. Team America has nothing on this. It's not all about puppet spunk going everywhere, though; this film is a work of bloody genius and you'd have to be proper po-faced not to enjoy it.

The concept is, of course, quite mad; in an LA where puppets exist as second class citizens, the cast of an '80 puppet television show are being murdered one by one. Meanwhile a puppet PI who is basically Philip Marlowe made of felt and voiced (literally) by the Swedish Chef, complete with first person narration, deals with the fallout from, er, falling out with his delightfully foul-mouthed former police partner Connie Edwards, the splendid Melissa McCartney.

It's even better than that, though; the script is hilarious, putting these Sesame Street style puppets in a world with lots of sex, swearing and, er, sugar. There's a rather decent whodunit going on but, even better than that, the firm is full of filthy dialogue. Delightfully filthy dialogue. And the not-particularly-famous cast plays it all perfectly.

If I were to pick holes, perhaps the ending is a little neat- yes, the baddie is defeated but it's not entirely clear how Phil comes to be exonerated. But I think it would be churlish to dwell on that too much; this film is hilarious, and didn't deserve to flop the way it did. Here's hoping for a deservedly long and glorious afterlife as a cult hit.

A Fish Called Wanda (1988)

"Touch his dick and he's dead!"

I first saw this magnificent farce back when I hired out the video, which shows you how long ago it was. It not only stars but is written by John Cleese, and the figure behind Fawlty Towers certainly knows how to do a good farce.

Cleese is bloody good as Archie, of course, the (ahem) archetype of repressed, sexually stultified exemplar of a certain type of public school educated Englishman. Jamie Lee Curtis is also bloody good as the cynically feminine and deeply greedy Wanda with her foreign languages fetish. But truly outstanding are Kevin Kline as the psychopathic Otto and Michael Palin as the stuttering Ken, an extraordinary performance. All four give splendid comedy performances.

There are some laugh out loud moments-  I loved Archie’s apology to Otto- but it’s largely an intricate and character based farce, perfectly constructed. I’m not a fan of the farce in general but John Cleese is a master of the art.

Archie’s speech to Wanda about the stultifying embarrassment of being English is both funny and true, up to a point. I tend to think the stiff upper lip stereotype applies only to the public school educated, separated from their parents and put into a strange and repressed existence that I know mainly from popular culture; the English are fundamentally open, emotional, beer swilling north Europeans quite culturally close to the Scandinavians, Germans and Dutch, but something about that sense of very English embarrassment has permeated throughout our culture. Perhaps the upcoming horrors of Brexit will change that. Perhaps they won’t.

Be that as it may, this is a true comedy classic, and possibly the last creation of John Cleese to have true greatness.

The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)

“I’ll have no pointy earer outscoring me!”

This is probably my least favourite of the trilogy but only because it’s the middle one and therefore the least dramatic. It’s still awesome and features the extraordinary Battle of Helm’s Deep. Never mind that Mrs Llamastrangler asked halfway through if they’d walked far and had to be told that it featured scenes of brisk walking, jogging and even a bit of horse riding..

The main problem with LOTR after this point is, of course, that all the exciting adventures of Gandalf, Aragorn etc are contrasted with the crushing fullness of Frodo and Sam walking very slowly towards Mordor in hundreds of pages of never-ending prose where very little happens. Peter Jackson, quite sensibly, cuts all this down rather a lot while expanding on the good stuff. It all looks superb, of course, and makes you want to go to New Zealand, and it’s all brilliant for the same reasons as the first film. The same cast continues to be magnificent for the same reasons, with the honourable additions of our newly introduced Rohirrim characters- Bernard Hill as Theoden, Miranda Otto as Eowyn, Karl Urban as Elmer and of course Chucky himself, Brad Dourif as Wormtongue. Rohan looks magnificent, the return of Gandalf is perfectly shot and the rejuvenation of Theoden is a joy to behold. And the Ents look extraordinary.

As for the Battle of Helm’s Deep, I’m not usually good with extended battle scenes, with their visual nature and lack of dialogue, but this kept me gripped with its twists and its turns. It’s an awesome finale to an awesome film. Is it just me, though, that finds it a little odd and jarring that Frodo is treated as a “master” by Gollum and as a boss by Sam essentially because he’s the country squire, something which may have been unthinkingly normal to Tolkien’s generation but looks decidedly odd now. But the class politics of LOTR are perhaps for another day...

Angel: Life of the Party

"Charles, you just peed on my shoes..."

After Lorne’s relatively low profile, especially last episode, at last he gets forty-odd minutes as the main event, in an episode which continues the solid run while not necessarily competing to be a highlight of the season.

Lorne has found himself so colossally overworked that he has, in an apparently standard Wolfram & Hart procedure, had his sleep removed. The conceit here, of course, is that this is not an awfully wise move for an empath demon as reality can be affected. All this centres around the apparently fabled Wolfram and Hart Halloween party, an important event for schmoozing.

It’s a good episode for Lorne, and he gets a nice little speech to Angel that he’s not a fighter, and no good with matters scientific or mystical, but the entertainment side is something he can do. This adds a bit of depth to him as a character. There’s also lots of amusing comedy as his words affect reality, with Gunn pissing everywhere, Fred and Wes getting pissed without drinking, and Angel and Eve shagging like rabbits- although she dies begin a meeting earlier by talking about wanking...

We’re also introduced to the influential demon Archduke Sebassis, fully equipped with a little gimp demon, and he has “returning character” written all over him. We also see Fred and Knox seeming to get together on an impromptu date. Yet again, there’s no sign of this season justifying its apparent “story of the week” reputation.

Angel: Hell-Bound

"I liked your poems."

"You like Barry Manilow."

So an arc episode, then, and a pretty good one, although the thread about Spike being dragged down to Hell comes to an abrupt end here. It’s a particularly well-directed episode, in many ways shot like a horror film, which so far seems to be a stylistic quirk of the season.

It’s a terrifying concept here, I assume, for those who believe in Hell. There are no ghosts in Wolfram & Hart’s LA office because, for centuries, a sadistic murdering bastard has been sending them all to Hell so he can stay out. Brr. Plus we get loads of cool Ghostbusters type stuff and a good episode for a rather competent, and heroic, Fred.

Perhaps more subtly we see the possible beginnings of a rapprochement between Angel and Spike, who banter well together. Wes and Gunn are, by now, firmly mates again. Lorne, oddly, only gets a brief scene where he doesn’t interact with anybody. And there's a very interesting exchange between Angel and Spike where we establish they're both certain that the sheer weight of their past sins mean they can never hope to avoid Hell, yet they choose to do the right thing anyway. But then the thought that humans are so morally weak that we require the hope of a nice afterlife to behave morally was always a horribly bleak one anyway. We do the right thing because it's the right thing.

As an episode this one feels very different but, while not reaching the heights of the first few episodes, it nevertheless continues an impressive run of quality.

Angel: Unleashed

"That something you English eat with your beans on toast?"

Three episodes in and the season still hasn’t settled into the story-of-the-week formula. Yes, there’s a surface plot about Nina, a woman who is bitten by a werewolf and has to learn to cope with the consequences, but it seems very much as if there’s a satisfying prospect of loads of arc stuff ahead of us at this point.

Not that the werewolf plot should be dismissed: it’s great. The scenes of Nina turning into a wolf are shot like a horror film, and Nina as a character is well-realised, with a life to return to and a realistic reaction. She also seems to be getting on rather well with Angel, and there are hints that they may sort of fancy each other. Hmm. The concept of a society of monster munching gourmands is a good one though. And I’ve also not failed to notice that this is a story about a woman who turns into a metaphorical monster every 28 days; this is basically an episode about periods.

But there’s plenty of arc stuff- the episode is bookended with scenes of the gang eating Chinese together and being both friends and, of course, trying to plot against the evil organisation that they’re running. But the ending scene is far more relaxed than the opening scene, and the suspicion of what’s been done to Gunn is fading away.

Also fading away, though, and being dragged down to Hell, is Spike, and for rather silly reasons he’s confided only in Fred. Things seem to be coming to a head; is there any hope for Soike...?

Angel: Just Rewards

"Wisecracking ghost sidekick? No bloody thanks!"

So far this season is pretty much as good as telly gets, with the second episode managing to pretty much equal the first without Joss even writing or directing.

A lot of this, of course, is down to the premise: after a few clips of the end of the last episode of Buffy it's established that Spike is now, barring the technical details, a ghost, and the premise looks like it's going to be as per the quote above. And it's enormous fun to see Spike interacting with all these characters, including of course Angel, his rival of old and with whom he has a great sparring chemistry, and naturally Harmony, the comedy ex. All the fun is in the characterisation, as it should be. Oh, there's a threat- a necromancer- but that isn't the point; the point is Spike. He's irreverent, he loves to get under Angel's skin- and hit him when given a rare chance- but he's essentially a goody these days. He's just a bit, well, punk in how he does it. And therefore the first to call Angel a sellout, something he probably needs to hear on a regular basis. He may essentially be, with his lack of corporeality, essentially just a Greek chorus with an acquaintance with the fourth wall, but it's good to have him.

But there's depth, and we find unexpected pathos in the final scene as he admits to Fred that he feels himself slowly slipping down to Hell, and he's scared.

Elsewhere it's still fascinating to see the newly lawyered-up Gunn, and Angel's constant moral dilemmas are fascinating. I'm loving the set-up for this season but, more importantly, how much thought has been given to the characters.