Michael*

I might give it a shot. A lot of the things I liked about the original Men In Black were forgotten about in the sequels, no idea if they'll be reinstated for this of course but Hemsworth and Thompson both being in it has me interested. As well as F. Gary Gray in the director’s chair.

'Big Game' TV Spot.

Our first look at S6 has arrived.

I had no clue who he was until about a year ago when the Channel 4 interview happened, after which I read up on him a little. Honestly, I'm not convinced he has an overarching philosophy beyond some fairly routine takes on gender roles, self reliance and not expecting the world to owe you a favour. The rest feels more like of a mosaic of notions, gathering together his observations on evolutionary biology, a pinch of Nietzsche and Jung, and a rather stern biblical take on creation. I think his biggest error is to hold up the west as a paragon of virtue, which obviously chimes with his traditional take on things, but doesn't acknowledge that the same set of values has also failed to prevent some of the worst behaviour that the relative modern world has ever seen, or allow for the possibility that those values might easily be subverted, to a catastrophic extent. That's not to say that some of what he dislikes completely misses the mark, but he seems downright myopic about the myriad of flaws in a system he values so much. As for his railing against Post Modernists and Marxists (two groups which aren't nearly as interchangable as he imagines), he appears to make a very simplistic leap of logic from his disdain for some Marxists and academics to an apparent supposition that some kind of totalitarian cabal is responsible for most of the ills of the 20th century, and has subsequently mutated into a potent force in education trying to unpick all the glue that holds western civilisation together. If that is indeed what he's saying and not just how I'm interpreting things, then there's more than a whiff of silly conspiracy theory there and frankly, I don't buy it for a minute. Of course, the problem with that sort of thing, as with flat earthers, climate change deniers etc, is that it's actually quite difficult to engage without acknowledging an alternate reality on which it's based and spending a lot of time unpicking it, and doing so seems to confer some sort of spurious credibility. Anyway, hopefully some of that was coherent, apologies for what is essentially a stream of consciousness rant.

Strange, a best director nod for Pawlikowski, but no best picture nomination for Cold War. It was at least the equal of the five other films I've seen from that list and probably my favourite of 2018 (with Sorry To Bother You and Leave No Trace not far behind). Much as I like Yorgos Lanthimos, The Favourite left me fairly cold.

The Solange Smith thread was removed when its creator was contacted by her team, who asked for it to be taken down. We really hate having to lose good content, but as I've mentioned before in the past, our hands are pretty much tied when formal delete requests come in.

I'm afraid we don't delete accounts but if there's another username that you'd like, we can certainly fix you up with a name change.

That's more or less what I meant by 'Twitter style debate', as in that little game of trying to box your opponent into a corner where they’re perceived to have said something stupid or objectionable. That lack of reasonable discourse is usually what happens when opinions and gut instincts are treated with equal importance to facts and context. We seem to have found ourselves in an age where people get to claim that the truth doesn't tell the whole story, which is completely insane. Peterson's own takes on practical everyday stuff are probably where he's on the strongest ground and of course, if he didn't resonate with people, he wouldn’t have an audience. A lot of the other things he says are obviously silly, but he says all of it with similar gusto and conviction, which as a result makes him fairly easy to criticise. At the same time though, I get that sinking feeling that if it hadn't been for the silly stuff, he wouldn't be anything like as popular or famous as he is now. Plus, he once posed for a photo with Mumford & Sons. I'd like to see even his most ardent supporters try to justify that.

I must confess, I'd never heard of him until the now-infamous Channel 4 interview took place, but I'd imagine that he would only be considered a genuine intellectual by folks for whom the Twitter style of debate has become a way of life. He essentially operates like an experienced stand up comedian, well-practiced ‘schtick’ with clearly defined ‘bits' and therefore can bat aside any 'hecklers' with relative ease. Where he falls down is that he seemingly tries to combat so-called 'undergrad' identity politics with Fox News identity politics, basically just bucketing together large groups of people that he doesn't like. 

Given that a few years have passed now since the last season, I have high hopes for this one. The most compelling thing about the first season for me was the toll taken on the people investigating the case, and it looks like they might be returning to that theme.

Fave.

Odd one, that. Bohemian Rhapsody was a perfectly okay biopic even if you're not a Queen fan (which I must confess, I'm not), crowd pleasing and with a commendable lead performance by Rami Malek, but there was nothing about it that would believably push it into the realm of 'Best Film of the Year' status.

If Michael Jackson hadn't died would he still be alive today?

Yeah, I'd say if Nolan goes wrong anywhere, it's probably that he summarises the journey too quickly. When Wayne broke his back in the books, there was obviously a long saga of recovery and redemption that followed, but of course Nolan is restricted by the movie's running time, so he speeds through from to his exile to his assumed death. Still, I think the movie is at its best when it tackles themes of mortality and loss.

It's interesting given that this was cited alongside The Phantom Menace as an example of initial hype being so strong that people talked about liking it after leaving and then realised later that it wasn't as good as they originally thought, that I think I've actually come to view TDKR more favourably than I did at the time of release. Watching it more objectively now, I think it's a great look into the psyche of Wayne and his reluctance, for better or worse, to give up his double life. In terms of telling a story about Batman and that internal struggle that he has, I honestly think it does a better job than any of the other live action movies. The only real weak link I felt was Marion Cotillard, but with repeated viewings (and of course, knowing the twist ahead of time), the character feels a bit more nuanced than I first thought. Nolan's trilogy should really be seen as one extremely long film, plot points are interconnected throughout and feel completely natural, like a complete story.

We don't have long to wait for season two.

It's a pretty huge (albeit unexpected) vote of confidence for S7 to be renewed so soon. Likely one of the things that helped was that the show is rarely just one story stretched over a full season. When it's on form, it can be genuinely fantastic to watch and a smaller episode order with tighter plotting and bigger budgets could really make things even better.

Great thrill to see Rebecca Ferguson buck the franchise's trend of having different female leads every time. I thought the connection she had to Cruise's character, which of course was something left over from the last installment, elevated the movie past the 'something explodes then the hero says something funny' (not that there's anything wrong with that) brand of action.

Always loved the 'existential horror' feel that Mignola brought to his stories, I've been dreaming of seeing a good adaptation of that for quite a while. Slightly random aside but when Ian McShane spoke in the trailer, it made me realise just how crucial John Hurt was to the initial movies and how enjoyable he was in the role. However it's precisely because Hurt so perfectly embodied the comic book character that I don't mind McShane basically just playing himself in this one. I’d rather see a new take than an imitation of what's already been done.

It would have been interesting to hear O'Shea's thoughts, although for all the stick he took from the fans, he was always seemingly committed to not rocking the boat, in public at least. I must admit that I breathed what was an almighty sigh of relief when he left for Reading, there was a certain type of negativity attached to us for far too long, and the old guard of O'Shea, Larsson, Jones and Cattermole all played parts in it to varying degrees. A minor quibble in the grand scheme of things of course, but there were moments where the editing seemed a touch skew-whiff too, like the squad board with the names of Ejaria (it had genuinely slipped my mind that the 'English Pogba' was here until the news broke of his loan at Rangers being terminated) and Fletcher on it, then showing the signings of both much later, or the a shot of the team boarding a plane, so you think they're away to Plymouth or somewhere. Nope, away to Carlisle. Mostly though, I found myself wanting a bit more of the team talks, tactical organisation and scout preparation before the matches, to get a better sense of how Grayson, Stockdale and Coleman might have differed in their methods of setting up the team and their communication with the players, I imagine it would have been a fairly significant culture shock each time.

Perhaps not real soul searching like you or I would do, but a little bit of reflection on why his second spell at Chelsea ended the way it did wouldn't have gone amiss and he'd probably have become a better manager as a consequence. When things started going wrong for him at United, he didn't appear to have an answer and didn't seem particularly interested in trying to find one. We know for sure that the era of United dominance is over now and possibly even the era of single-club dominance, although City could make the most convincing case for it if Pep chooses to stick around.

I made my first foray into the online mode this week, it's an absolute blast alongside a group of friends but an impossibly lonely experience to play solo. I'd imagine that more content will be on its way that can be enjoyed with or without a posse when the beta phase is over.

I get the impression that instead of doing a different take on the comics, they're trying a different take on the movies, which never really matched the source material perfectly but had the visual flair of Del Toro to offset the difficulty of adapting Mignola's tone to the big screen. The "R rated with a lot of violence" angle somehow feels less like Hellboy to me, and while there was never any doubt that this would incorporate violent themes, most of the stuff in the books was depicted with subtlety or left entirely to the imagination.

The Mourinho philosophy is fine in a "if we're winning then who cares" kind of way but when things start to unravel, a bit of honesty should always kick in, only it never seems to with Jose. I thought after his sacking from Chelsea that if he'd done a bit of soul searching about his part in what went wrong, he could have led United back to the top. Instead the United job seemed to take his ego to another level. The only real surprise is that it was allowed to carry on for so long.