Pop Culture is Dead To Me 3: This Time It's Personal

A surprisingly thin-on-the-ground selection for this quarter; but this is probably down to having rediscovered 'a social life' and not dependent on a TV for entertainment...

Anyhow, you know when you really look forward to something and it turns out to be considerably less exciting than you could ever wish for? Well, the last time I actually looked forward to a film and enjoyed it was Arrival - the CE3K for the 21st Century, so I had vast expectations of Annihilation based purely on its premise (and its apparent similarity to an idea I had over five years ago).

Annihilation is based on the Jeff Van der Meer book of the same name - the first part of a trilogy about an area of the USA that becomes 'some other place' and it stars Natalie Portman and Oscar Issac (both with Star Wars connections) and is directed by Alex Garland, he of Ex Machina fame, so there's oodles of pedigree and potential. Yet, despite getting a limited cinematic release in the last country it should have been shown, the rest of the world got it on Netflix, based it seems on the idea that the studio behind it got cold feet about the ... subject matter and esoteric story line. I'm thinking they maybe realised it was just a heap of barely intelligible boredom. I don't need to be a half-wit Yank to dislike this film on a number of levels - it isn't weird enough; it isn't psychedelic enough and it's as exciting as watching your nan doing the ironing, while listening to repeats of The Archers... Yes, it's that good!

The other problem with Annihilation is its disjointedness - presumably deliberately done to attempt to convey the weirdness of Area X (where most of the film is set), there seems to be lots of time spent drawing allegory from the worlds the expedition team have left behind. I'm not overly convinced these allegories worked, regardless of the obvious or subtle execution; but this might be down to the bleak and humourless journey the viewer has to take.

Frankly, I think it's a mess that apparently takes so many liberties with the source material that someone else could adapt the book and this film would come out considerably differently.

I feel a little like the Americans who hated the end of the Shadow War in Babylon 5 because it wasn't exciting enough; but where I could see the necessity of that, this film needed something to actually happen in it, because aside from the mutated empathy bear and a few flowers, it felt decidedly like a dull road movie.

I also feel that when You Tube is flooded with seven minute films of nerds explaining to other nerds what the film or the ending meant then it maybe shouldn't have been released in the first place. This is intellectual snobbery, by the way, this is someone who fancies themselves as a pretty good writer conveying my belief that this was incoherently done and any subliminal message was lost; probably down the weirdly vaginal hole in the Lighthouse...

Regular readers will know I've grown utterly tired of the Marvel films, purely because they either don't live up to my expectations or I'm simply growing too old to appreciate a film genre that is now firmly directed at people younger than me. I was hoping that Thor: Ragnarok would buck a trend, especially as I've really enjoyed the other two Thor films.

The problem with it is it's simply too long, it's also too comedic and presumably Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) couldn't be in it because her film-star alter-ego was farting about in some vaguely psychedelic/delirious film purporting to be 'intelligent SF'. That aside, it was the most enjoyably daft Marvel film I've seen in a while, even if, like Annihilation I found it hollow and a little lifeless.

Would I be right in suggesting that 'solo' superhero films are no longer that? Take Spider-Man: Homecoming - it has Iron Man in it. The new Thor has the Hulk, Valkyrie and, at the end, the Guardians. I haven't seen Black Panther and I'm in no hurry to, but I wonder how many 'guest stars' are in it? Avengers: Infinity War (Part One) will have about 100 superheroes in it; I expect each of them will get less than 10 seconds air time; someone will die at the end and all will seem lost until Adam Warlock turns up at the end... Yawn...

I'm sure I've seen some other films since Christmas, but the failure of any of them to stick in my memory could simply be an indication that movies are in need of something new, especially when TV and streaming services seem to be cleaning up; or I simply might be suffering from dementia. In fact, I think part of the reason my viewing habits have declined has been down to too much choice. Not all that choice is going to be award-winning fodder either.

In terms of networked TV (you know the drill, I rarely talk about UK TV because most of it is bad and I don't really care if you really think [insert name here] was the best British [insert genre type here], I'm unlikely to watch it) I'm convinced I've missed out or forgotten half of what I've watched. The thing is I might not remember them because they're even less worth talking about than the following load of horse testicles...

Lucifer is a TV show in need of a show runner who understands how these kind of shows work, because it is fast becoming the genuine 21st century version of Columbo. One of the original charms of the series was the dull procedural shit you had to get through, almost as tiresomely as Lucifer, so we could have those juicy five to ten minutes of PLOT. The problem is that PLOT got so far and then ground to a halt and was replaced by a series of slightly irrelevant subplots that seem to go out of their way to portray Lucifer like some sheltered slightly twattish kid with a growing dose of Tourette's, who also, despite millennia of observing human behaviour still has absolutely no clue how to behave. It was fun for two series, but now it needs to move on.

Lucifer is also fast becoming the graveyard for washed up ex-fantasy show actors. Trish Helfer didn't do a bad job last series, but, honestly, does she need to be around now? And why is she more like the goddess who possessed her than the homely wife and family lawyer she was originally, but has been carelessly forgotten about?

The other problem is Tom Welling. He was head and shoulders the worst thing in Smallville (and he played Clark Kent) and now he's Kane, the first murderer, where he gets to flex all of his absolutely non-existent acting skill, while being allowed to sing very badly. No wonder some of the cast are beginning to look confused (or is that bemused?), all the time.

Meanwhile, torture and misery porn has advanced to new and even more controversial levels with (say it in a gruff US accent) Ay Em Cee's The Walking Dead... I thought making the Season eight story - All Out War - stretch out across the entire 16 episodes in what appeared, at first, to be continuous real time action seemed like a good idea, but after the opening four episodes (which appeared to cover the same time frame from several different perspectives) we appear to have settled back into another weirdly chronological mishmash of confusion.

If the show runner thought killing off Carl was a way of getting the series back on track and thoroughly confusing the comic readers, then the jury is out. Yes, the kid who played Carl in the series was as wooden as a yew tree, but in the comic he's become almost as important as his father, in the grand scheme of things. So they either look for a new 'Carl' one who can act and is interesting, or they go in a different direction to the comic - completely.

The problem with TWD now is it has become a shouty mess with no clear direction any more. The zombies are almost a distraction from the latest psychos and their crazy followers and once Negan and co are out of the way - by the end of this current series you can be sure - we've got the Whisperers waiting in the wings. Another bunch of randomly chaotic psychos intent on killing the living.

I don't know if this is true and frankly I don't like searching the internet for vague things, but the next series of sister show Fear Madison and her Family or whatever it's called is being fast forwarded FIVE years and Morgan from TWD is joining the cast, presumably in the hope that viewers will give a shit.

I addressed this before - if you had a series about living in a mountain retreat with solar and wind power and a mountain stream, it would get a little boring when each episode was about crop yields or fortifying the outer perimeter...

The new addition to our viewing pleasure was The Good Place. We watched Season One more on the recommendation of seeing others asking if people had seen it. It's essentially a 22 minute weekly comedy series about people who have died and gone to 'The Good Place'. It sounds like something that guy from Little House on the Prairie should be in with guest appearances from Aled (I never touched her, guv) Jones, but it is actually as odd as anything you will ever see on US TV. We have the entire season two to watch after binge watching the first series. The wife is undecided, I'm just hoping it doesn't turn into some weirdly bloated Groundhog Day.

The shock for me has been how surprisingly irreverent and enjoyable most of this, presumably final, season of The X-Files has been. With just a few more to go before Gillian Anderson quits the show for good, I'd hope it ties up as neatly as it can without trying to shag a bloated corpse any longer than necessary. This season has been blessed with some excellent stand alone episodes that have been head and shoulders above the now tired and balding main plot. Let's hope they manage to finally put it out of its misery on a high note.

Agents of SHIELD was going to join most of the other Marvel series - whether Fox, Netflix or ABC - on the scrap heap. After a season that was far too long stuck in a virtual world, this new (also possibly last) series went a little weird by setting pretty much the first half of it in the future where the Kree rule over the remaining rubble of the planet Earth. We're now back in their own time with the sword of Damacles hanging over their heads by virtue of knowing if they make the wrong decision they will forever be trapped in a paradoxical time loop.

It has gone from almost certain death to being back up there as one of the must watch things of the week; largely down to some cracking dialogue and a kind of Buffy-esque ability to be both deadly serious and slightly tongue-in-cheek. You just know it's going to get canned in May.

That brings us to what should have been something remarkable yet somehow empty and devoid of pleasure... Happy came in like a breath of fresh air and went out like a stale sequel waiting to happen. Based on an idea/comic Grant Morrison probably had while pished on Buckthorn and deep-fried Mars bars, it's about a former cop turned hit man who (for want of a better description) adopts his (unknown) daughter's imaginary friend. It's choc-a-bloc full of Three Stooges styled violence; pithy dialogue and thoroughly icky and creepy characters, yet despite only being eight episodes long, it felt like it was at least five too many.

In the end it was a slightly sordid and soiled example of why not every idea should be made into a TV series and this might have worked as a slightly low budget feature film. I won't be catching up with season two when it finally appears, because by the end of the first series I was waiting for it to conclude. it was also a SyFy series and, frankly, inserting molten needles in your urethra is better than watching anything from those 'lo quality charlatans'.

Star Trek: Discovery finished its inaugural run with an ultimately disappointing cop out conclusion to a slightly disjointed narrative. It was still a brilliant reboot with many things on its side. You just wonder if they can continue with the intensity and adult themes and if they can they're not frightened to advance it even further; I hope so, but... You know?

I do watch some British TV and I'd like to give you a quick comparison between The Grand Tour and BBC's Top Gear. GT is TG with more money, presented by three oafish bores who are also extremely good at what they do. TG is now a fairly dull car show with two genuinely likeable presenters fronting a largely dreary programme. I can't stand Clarkson as a human being, but I know he did appeal to a large group of people and it is arguable he was used as an initial scapegoat to test the waters of how offended people can be and once it was confirmed that a small percentage of social media users could influence the way the rest of the world thinks, we all got slightly shafted.

Still to watch: All of Fargo, Shameless US season 8, The Punisher, season two of Jessica Jones, season 3 of Mr Robot and The Twin Peaks reboot and have to find time to watch Altered Carbon, Feud, and Mr Mercedes. I also have about six things from the last couple of columns I still haven't watched and the longer it goes on the less likely I am to watch. 

I have a Star Wars film to get around to: a few cult films (Ingrid Goes West, Colossal, It Comes at Night and - still - the Mexican film The Untamed) to get through and that's before other films come out that I'm hoping I'll want to see. The weird thing is I look at someone like my mate Andy's film review site and realise that he'll watch 100 new films in a year, with ease, and I'm getting to the stage where I'm lucky if I can watch 10 that I'm remotely interested in - and when I do I'm as disappointed as a kid wanting a bike and getting a carrot at Christmas; it's no surprise my enthusiasm is waning, is it?