TV: SUMMER TIME AND REPEATING IS EASY

All the good series (we're talking genre drama here) are coming to an end. It's as if the planners have all gone on holiday, clicked the repeat icon on a computer and let it do the programming. Oh well, I thought, at least I'll have time to catch up with the ever growing pile of DVDs, like Game of Thrones Season 2 and recorded from Sky Season Three.

But wait!  What's this? New series are starting. Interesting series. Favourite series. Surely not! But yes, it is true.

There's Top of the Lake on BBC2 on Saturdays, New Zealand's answer to the glum Nordic crime sagas. But interesting. In English. Written and directed by Jane Campion. With a good cast.

And from the semi-sublime to the quasi-ridiculous there's my old favourite (trans: I own Seasons 1-7 on DVD) Supernatural Season 8 on Sky Living on Wednesdays. And not just one episode but two. And they're preceded by Castle which is coming to then end of its current run so I'm not sure if I can count that.

The Bro's are back!

Tuesday nights are just as good with new seasons of Falling Skies (S.3) and Body of Proof (S.3).  FS is okay (aliens conquer Earth, resistance fights back) but I wouldn't shed a tear if it wasn't renewed.  BoP falls into the I like it but not enough to buy the DVDs I mainly like it for its attractive mature star Dana Delany. This season her previous love interest, a younger man, is no longer on the scene and the police team of black woman cop and fat balding male cop (both likeable characters) have been replaced by hip handsome intelligent young ethnic cop and grizzled vet who has a past with our heroine. Only two episodes so far, judgment reserved. These are on at the same time.

The bearded hero is back!

The bitch is back!

Following them on Sky Atlantic at 10pm is th eponymous Ray Donovan starring Liev Schreiber. Ray is a tough Hollywood fixer -"You think you're only client to have woken up next to a dead body?"- but with a deeply hidden soft side. It's as much a family story as seamy Hollywood drama. Brother Butchy is a substance abuser. Brother (forget his name) is an ex-boxer turned trainer who has Parkinsons. He's played by Eddie Marsan the British character actor who is in just about every drama on British tv; it may be one of Equity's rules, or maybe it's just because Marsan is so good although the characters he plays tend not be. An odd choice for a Hollywood drama perhaps but this never occurs to you while he's actually on screen. And then there's Donovan's hated father Mickey just out of prison after twenty years and one of the first things he does is murder a priest. Donovan wants him well away from his family for reasons not stated, though it's implied he drove his own daughter to suicide, and Donovan doesn't get his wish. Daddy Dear is played with frightening skill by John Voight and may be the vilest character on TV this year.

And then there's the Hollywood coverups like the macho young male actor who likes sucking the cocks of shemales, one of whom is blackmailing him. Underused so far is Katherine Moenig as his lesbian researcher, hardly a stretch for her.

Only two episodes and I'm hooked. Ten more to go.

Daddy's back!

Summer's looking good.

THE! ROYAL! BABY!

About lunchtime I started to write a humorous piece about the royal baby, well, not so much the royal baby, but send up the fact that every news channel and every new bulletin was packed with totally boring stuff about nothing happening other than stupid people with nothing better to do with their time were standing outside the hospital where preggers Kate was inside in labour, or standing outside Buckingham Palace where the official announcement of its arrival would be made and every so often one of the waiting cretins would be interviewed to say how much they loved the royal family and how fucking excited they were and this was all fucking repeated about every ten minutes and it's now over eight hours since this crap started and they're still telling viewers how nothing is fucking happening but isn't it exciting! and no it fucking isn't! and David Cameron,we are told ad nauseam, is saying how excited the entire country is; well I'm not fucking excited, I'm fucking irritated by the whole damn thing and I'm sure I'm not the only one and, bugger me, but at times like this I start to think that maybe the Russians had the right idea about the czar and his family; hell, I'm not even a republican I'm just not fucking interested in the royal family but I am interested in the news it's just a pity that we're not getting any just fucking morons waiting for a woman to drop her sprog; and I shudder to think just how much royalist shit is going to be rammed down our throat when he she or it finally does arrive and then we have to look forward to about three years of the royal toddler, followed by years and years of the royal child and probably the royal siblings -the buggers can never have just one, always needing a spare- and, thankfully, by the time we get the royal adult I'll either be dead or too demented to notice: at lunchtime today this seemed quite amusing but I couldn't finish it because my computer for reasons known only to itself shut down and now, eight hours later, all I can think is, Christ I need a fucking drink!

BLU-RAY DVD: STALLONE COLLECTION

It occurred to me recently that I hadn't seen Demolition Man, my favourite Sly movie, in quite a while so I checked Amazon for a cheap copy and found this collection for a tenner. As his 80' and 90's action movies were usually good fun (and I'd seen another in the set), I decided it was worth forking out a little more and it was still a very reasonable price for a blu-ray collection.

I watched them in the order they were in the box which was a good idea as each one was usually better than the one which preceded it.

Which meant I started out with the worst, Cobra directed by George Pan Cosmatos which should have been a warning in itself. That the romantic lead was played by Brigitte Nielsen should have been another. I'll spare you any details; suffice to say that it has to be among Stallone's worst films.

While he can carry a movie on his own and is a much better actor than he's often given credit for (if you haven't already, go watch Copland, seriously, get it now), his movies are more effective when he has a good actor as either villain or partner, something all the other films in this set prove.

Assassins is directed by respected veteran Richard Donner. (Curious coincidence: the night before watching Assassins, I'd watched Superman 2 the Richard Donner cut.) Here Stallone is an assassin at the top of his profession but up and coming and totally ruthless Antonio Banderas wants the top slot. Stallone ends up on the run with hacker and target Julianne Moore. Cue lots of action and fun for the viewer.

You get another good director, Andrei Konchalovsky, for Tango & Cash, a mismatched buddy-buddy tale of two cops framed, imprisoned, etc. Stallone plays the smart-suited sophisticate always on the phone to his broker and the best cop in town Tango. Kurt Russell plays the hairy laid-back Cash who is also the best cop in town. As you'd expect, plenty of action scenes, lots of bone-breaking violence, snappy banter. Why else would you want to watch this?

The Specialist (dir. Louis Llosa) has an excellent cast. Eric Roberts is the violent son of aging Cuban-American gang lord Rod Steiger (Rod Steiger!) who is aided (or suckered?) by psychotic hitman James Woods who does vile horrible characters better than anyone. Stallone is also a hitman, ex-CIA who uses explosives, hence the title and is approached by Sharon Stone who, as a child escaped the massacre of her family by Roberts. But is she to be trusted? This is just a terrific thriller full of action and double crosses and is probably the best in this box set. There's also a steamy sex in the shower scene between... oh come on, that must be obvious. And I have to say that a naked moisture-slicked Sharon Stone takes your breath (alright, my) breath away.

Finally, we come to the reason I bought this set in the first place and very much the odd one out, Demolition Man. True, it does qualify as an action-adventure but it's equally as valid to describe it as satirical science fiction. It's also the film which set Sandra Bullock on her swift rise to stardom.

Beginning in the then-near future of 1996, tough cop Stallone takes down manic psycho Wesley Snipes who then blames Stallone for allowing the deaths of innocents to take place and the authorities actually take the word of a known homicidal maniac over that of a cop! Result, both are cryogenically frozen, brainwashed while under, and woken periodically for a parole hearing. 

Cut to 32 years later when Snipes is woken up, escapes, and discovers he has a lot of knowledge about how this new society works. This new society is one fit for placid sheep, a peaceful, harmonious society where everything harmful is banned (meat, alcohol, weapons, so it's not all bad) and also swearing. It's so peaceful that the cops only have taser sticks and don't know how to fight. Naturally an unstoppable Snipes goes on the rampage, a direwolf among sheep, causing gleeful mayhem and horrifying the cops who haven't seen a report of MURDERDEATHKILL in twenty years. Feisty cop Sandra Bullock (excellent) suggests fighting fire with fire and so guess who is revived.

The society portrayed is so deliberately over the top bland and considerate and intensely annoying that even I would want to commit anti-social acts (property damage, I wouldn't want to actually hurt anyone).  The sheer contrast between what Stallone came from and what he finds is a great vehicle for humour and the film is often laugh out loud, not least when Bullock -"Let's blow this guy"- gets the vernacular wrong.

I could write a lot about this film because it has many excellent clever touches and raises issues which are worth discussing but it can also be annoyingly dumb at times. However, in case you haven't seen it I'll stop now avoid spoilers. And if you haven't seen it, you should because, uneven or not, it is really very good indeed.

DVD (BLU-RAY): HANSEL & GRETEL WITCH HUNTERS (EXTENDED CUT, 2013)

When this came out at the beginning of the year, the critics and reviewers dumped on it from a great height. Even the fan press (specifically the Internet-based genre fans) was pretty cool. From the clips I'd seen it looked like a dumb popcorn movie but a fun dumb popcorn movie. Well, the general impression I got from reading the reviews was that I got everything right except the fun part.

But what the hell, I took a punt on the film when I could get the blu-ray for a tenner. And, well, either the critics were wrong or the extended cut (by around nearly ten minutes) was a whole load better because while I couldn't say I loved it, I certainly liked it a lot. and for lots of reasons, not the least being that it happened to be a shitload of fun.

For a start it was written and directed by Norwegian Tommy Wirkola of cult hit Dead Snow, the gory Nazi zom-com which I'd liked. In an extra, he tells us that as part of Australian film course he had to put a pitch for a movie and pitched this. His lecturer told him to never mention this again until he could put it to a Hollywood producer and it would sell immediately. So that's what he did and that's what happened.

The premise. Traumatised while young by being dumped in the forest by their parents, fattened up for the pot by a hideous witch whom they subsequently kill, they grow up to be witch hunters. The growing up is shown by torn pages from newspapers (with woodcuts as pictures).

Set in Germany some time after the industrial revolution has begun -H&G's weapons are too sophisticated in a steam-punk sense for it to be any earlier- and in and around a small town surrounded by forest and mountains. Local sheriff, (actor Peter Stormare), is in full crowd-rousing form as he urges them to burn an attractive young woman because she's obviously a witch.

How does he know? Because he just fucking knows, that's how he knows and you're starting to look a bit witchy to him so shut the fuck up. His rabble-rousing is interrupted by Hansel and Gretel who've been hired by the mayor to put an end to the local witch stuff. Hansel quickly explains why the attractive young woman couldn't be a witch because -after roughly examining her teeth as if she was a horse- she's too fucking attractive to be a fucking witch so stop bothering her or he'll fucking bother with you. Got it? (And if you're wondering why I'm fucking swearing so much it's because everybody in the film fucking swears all the fucking time and yes it does get a bit fucking wearing after a while.) Stormare is pretty pissed off by this and calls Gretel a whore who says nothing but abruptly steps forward, headbutts him and breaks his nose. (And you think there's going to be more to do with the attractive young woman who isn't a f.. sorry.. witch, you're right.

Okay, witches are ugly. Here's our chief witch as played by Famke Janssen (and, yes, this is her in ugly witch not just a bad mood after a night on the town mode). She's building up to create a witchpocalypse by kidnapping specific children for a ritual. Feel free to hiss and boo her, she's used to it.

I should, at this point, mention our lead actors, Jeremy Renner and Gemma Arterton. Renner is a mean moody action hero. Arterton is a more subdued but still mean, moody and demurely sexy action heroine. I've recently come to the conclusion that any film Gemma Arterton is in is worth watching because Gemma Arterton is in it. There's good brother-sister chemistry between them. They and their stunt doubles (Arterton, in an extra, hugs her stunt-double and sings her praises) are very convincing in the action sequences which are very well staged and there's plenty of them. 

The special effects are excellent on every level. There are some gloriously hideous witches including a pair of Siamese twins joined at the back.They can not only fight standing up but

scuttle around on all fours. (If they take turns, should that be all eights?) The gore is appropriately splattery with splattered heads, decapitations and limb-lopping by the bucket load. and what's really surprising is that much of the effects are mechanical and practical rather than cgi. Wirkola says that he used cgi to enhance rather substitute. I was amazed that Edward the Troll (the witches' servant who totes that bale of kids on his back) was mostly a man in a suit.

Incidentally, the story is cleverer than you might expect as there's a major revelation towards the end that concerns the location and their past. And it's also funny but not in the evilwitch-com sense.

This is way way effing way better than you might imagine. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll sigh, you'll go eeeurgh! Definitely my under-rated movie of the year.

(I did review this on Amazon but this is the fucking uncut and fucking drastically better version. Got it?)

(Okay, it is a load of rubbish, but it's still great well-made entertainment and I'm going to watch it again soon.)

CINEMA: PACIFIC RIM

Giant monsters, mmmm!

I've loved giant monster movies for as long as I can remember. The original King Kong is probably, no, certainly my favourite movie ever. I liked the early Ray Harryhausen monsters of the 50's -giant octopus and rhedosaurus (dinosaur) and am a big fan of Japanese monsters. most notably Godzilla which is a prime inspiration, along with Japanese giant robots (which predated the pathetic Transformers) which inspired the film.

So you can imagine how hot I was for this movie.

And you can also imagine my disappointment that it wasn't nearly as good as I'd hoped.

First off it shares the same problem as the Godzilla flics. When the monsters aren't on the screen the film slows to a crawl because the puny humans aren't very interesting even when they're shouting at each other, which they do a lot here. Mind you, most giant monster movies suffer from the same problem. The only one I can remember that has a great human story in it is the Korean The Host which has a dysfunctional poor family as the focus; admittedly the monster is big but not gigantic either. Despite a strong cast, PR just doesn't cut it on the human front.

Secondly, way too much of the monster action is set either at night or in/under water or both and it tends to happen way too quickly to appreciate everything that's going on. It may be more realistic (like that should matter in a film like this!) but it doesn't help the enjoyment. Basically, brighter! slower! I also would have liked to see more robot on monster action on dry land and not just in anonymous cityscapes. And something I was wondering about while the robots were shooting or firing rockets or bludgeoning the monsters was if a short sword might not be more effective. In this I was right but they were saving it for the penultimate battle.

I never thought I'd say this but I am not adding Pacific Rim to my list of DVDs to buy and I'm someone who bought Hansel and Gretel Witch Hunters on Blu-Ray! (And very good it is too -see my Amazon review or wait for me to get my finger out and review it here.)

BOOKS: MENTIONED IN THE MAIL ONLINE, FRONT PAGE OF THE SUNDAY TIMES

Yes, it's the highly praised crime novel, published in April this year, by new writer Robert Galbraith.

 

Who is now revealed to be no less than-

-one of the few writers in the world most people can identify from their photograph.

The sales of this book are now going to soar as people rush to order it, like me around nine o'clock this morning from Amazon.

All due credit to Rowling for going this route as it meant the book would be judged on its own merits, free from preconceptions. As a result of the enthusiastic reviews, it's sold quite well for a first novel by an unknown writer which must be very gratifying to her. I'll let you know what I think in the next couple of weeks.

SOME THOUGHTS ON THE LEAST IMPORTANT SUBJECT IN THE WORLD

Below these words is a picture of this post's topic.

Have you guessed what it is yet?

"But Ian," you say, "there's nothing there."

"I know," I reply. "It's death."

************************************************************************************************************

I've been thinking about death recently (and, let me state, this isn't a depressing or maudlin post), which isn't all that unusual for me but in this case was sparked by three things: my 65th birthday in four weeks time when I become entitled to the State Pension and, therefore, am officially an old man; the selfish refusal of the Mandela family to turn off the life support machine and let a noble man died with dignity; and reading Iain Banks final novel The Quarry which deals with the dying of a man in his early forties from inoperable cancer and the irony that shortly before finishing the novel, Banks discovered that he too was dying from inoperable cancer.

For some time in my early thirties I became obsessed with the thought of death.I would lie awake for hours agonising at the brutal fact of my extinction and an infinity of non-existence. (In case you aren't aware, I'm an atheist.), which is really quite stupid and I'll explain why shortly. Nevertheless, it happened and made me extremely unhappy. I went to see my gp who just brushed me off. Several years later after I'd changed my doctor I mentioned this phase to him and he told me it was probably angst (or some German word). Actually, he was wrong; I was suffering from full-blown depression which ultimately led me to several sessions with a psychiatrist, but by then I'd already begun to make changes in my life.

The Quarry isn't so much about death as it is about dying. The narrator is cancer-sufferer's 18 year old high functioning Asperger's suffering son. His father is taking T.S. Eliot's route -"Rage, rage, against the dying of the light."- which was pretty much my position and, like me, it doesn't do a bit of good, it just makes you very unhappy. (Aside: I was amused my lots of talk about religion -the young narrator, like his father, is an atheist- and reading anti-religious views which were identical to my own. Wish I'd met Banks.)

I'm now pretty much twice as old as I was back then and my life has changed considerably since those days of heavy smoking, heavy drinking, obsessed by writing, still living at home. And my views on many things have changed to varying degrees. Recently separated from my wife of nearly 25 years, I'm living on my own (plus cats, see cat blog) in a nice modest size house plus garden which I have pretty much the way I want it. My local government pension plus rent from a flat (and, yes, I pay tax on it; I've an accountant to prove it) provides me with enough for my modest needs, after basics are paid for, of books, CDs, DVDs and wine (£4-£5.00 a bottle). I'm active doing cat rescuing which brings me in contact with people, as well as regularly seeing a couple of old friends whom I selfishly hope don't die before me. I swim regularly. And I've found that I like living on my own.  I even have a reasonable expectation, given my mother's family's longevity, of still being around for another quarter century, though there are no guarantees and I wouldn't put money on it. And if I go loopy like my late mother did, I'd rather not.

But in short, I have complete control of my life and I'm more content than I have ever been. At the age of sixty-four and fifteen sixteenths, I'm truly happy.

I haven't made my peace with death because I don't need to. I've come to understand that death doesn't exist. Death isn't a thing, it's an absence and it's the one thing in life which happens to us all. I'd rather it didn't, especially now when I'm loving my life. But it doesn't matter, I simply won't be there. It isn't an unending blackness, it's nothing at all. Nothing!

Death doesn't matter.

Only life matters and how you live it.

Me, I've had a pretty quiet and innocuous life. I've liked being a librarian because I like to help people, customer care as it's called these days, I carry this over in my dealings with people who want to or have to give up their cats and the people who want to adopt them. I'm pleased that I've had the flexibility to change my views over the years from middle of the road to libertarian left, though they've always been essentially humanitarian. I do confess to being intolerant of those who dislike or discriminate against others because the others are not like them (e.g. black, gay, woman, fat, red-haired, disabled, support Sunderland football team, etc). "We're all people. Why can't we just get along?" 

I'm not claiming to be perfect here -just ask anyone who knows me- but I've reached a point where I'm comfortable with myself, warts, weaknesses, and all. Maybe it isn't death I've been afraid of all these years but life.

You know, I really was intending to write at modest length about death, but it seems to have gotten away from me. What the hell, it is what it is. Now it's tea time and I have cats and kittens to feed and -sniff, sniff- litter trays to empty. It's a hot sunny day. I'm going to have rice wrapped in vine leaves and anchovies, both from tins (Greek) which I bought in Lidl on Thursday, and then finish off watching the Continuum DVD box set. Ah, life doesn't get much better than this. (Winks.)

A HERO, FAILING

FREE NELSON MANDELA

He has served his country and his people well. He has set an example to the world. Now he is old, frail and ill. Only a life support machine is keeping him going. Surely it's time to let him rest. Switch off the machine and, for one last time, free Nelson Mandela.