Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness

 The title is a bit of a mouthful isn't it? Anyway, I finally got to see this movie about a week after it came out (long story) after carefully avoiding spoilers and reviews. Having followed up with some reviews since, I'm glad I did avoid them, as this movie had a few surprises that added a lot to its impact.

After this point there will be a lot of SPOILERS so come back later if you want.

Right, the first surprise was that Wanda / Scarlet Witch is the villain. I guess she was the kind of villain in the WandaVision series too, but then she seemed to be redeemed. Here she is back to suffering terrible grief at the loss of Vision and repeated regret at not having the two children that she invented. 

The brilliant thing about this is that we get a villain that we care about. We know a lot about her. We care about her... she's not bad, really; lots of bad things have happened to her. She's had to sacrifice a lot. Given the amount of power she has, as is said repeatedly in the dialogue, this is her "being reasonable".

Alongside the great villain (Scarlet Witch has always been my favourite character in the MCU) we get a lot of action. This is a very exciting film. The balance between showing people with huge power smashing each other about and telling the story is very well struck, I thought.

We learn a lot more about multiverses and with America Chavez get an "easy" way to move between them. Clearly this is a tool that Marvel are going to use to expand the MCU in many ways which can be contradictory without destroying the overall cohesion of the collection of movies.

Relatively short-lived appearances by Reed Richards, Black Bolt, Prof X and alternative versions of Captain America and Captain Marvel highlight this... as does the ease with which they are all brutally killed off.

I didn't have very high expectations for this film, mainly because I am not a massive Doctor Strange fan. But this is as much a Scarlet Witch film as anything else, so for that reason I loved it.

Very exciting. Also very moving at times. Excellent movie.

National Treasure (2016 TV series)

This is about the TV series from 2016, not the earlier action moves of the same name.

The series was inspired by the aftermath of the Jimmy Saville revelations, where we learned (in real life) that a supposed National Treasure can turn out to have been a serial sexual abuser.

But this is not a fictionalised version of the Saville story, since he died before any of his accusers were believed, nor is it an account of any of the men who were subsequently prosecuted as "proxies" for Saville to prove that the authorities had learned their lesson. Some of those men are mentioned by name in this series, as is Saville, and some of the men who were prosecuted and aquitted.

Since the central character is purely fictional, we don't know if he is guilty or innocent. That kind of turned it into a mystery, which makes you question all the things that happen as "evidence" one way or the other. In one of the flashbacks during an interview Finchley claims he sent the babysitter home in the cab he had taken home... we see the cab leaving, but we don't know if the girl is in it or if he is just sending the cab away. There are lots of other clips that could either verify or disprove his evidence, but we never quite see enough to decide until near the end.

As the story proceeds to court we do find out more and I started to shift to a definite opinion as to my preferred outcome. Which was a problem, since well before the ending I realised that there was no good ending possible. Finchley was an unpleasant man, his accusers clearly suffered, other women probably suffered just as much but didn't come forward. On the evidence presented to the court he should probably be aquitted; but on the weight of probability he was probably guilty.

I think the show found an ending which was at least believable. Overall I didn't particularly enjoy watching this, but it was sobering viewing which I think does a good job of examining the carnage caused to people's lives by sexual abuse.

Bigbug

 French comic sci-fi / futuristic farce on Netflix. The garish colour palette and over the top acting make this a real in your face attack on the senses. As usual I watched it in the original soundtrack with English subtitles.

The story is kind of incidental - rogue AI decides to kill people, house robots protect their owners (or are they friends) - because this is really just some good French characters doing what they do best... not getting what they want from life and complaining / fighting about it.

It's kind of clichéd with the older rejected wife facing her ex-husband and his younger girlfriend, the chancer poking around, the young man awkwardly desiring the young girl and the much older lady with the mechanised gigolo (or talking dildo as I'm sure someone says at some point).

But throw in some robots and it is novel enough to be entertaining in a slightly different way from all the other french comedies that you may, or may not, have enjoyed in the past.

Nothing amazing, but quite fun.

Unpaid balance on your AdSense account

 The reason I removed ads from this blog (years ago) was that after several years of posting I still hadn't received enough revenue to get paid and it annoyed me a bit that Google were just sitting on that money. It wasn't much to me, but if there were thousands or millions of people in the same situation then Google were benefiting hugely. So I cancelled my AdSense account and expected to get the £20 or so sent to me. I expected it to take a while. But, 4 years later, after forgetting about it completely, I got this on March 31 2022:

Hello,
As a part of our internal audit we have identified an unpaid balance of 20.55GBP on your AdSense account pub-XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX that is owed to you.
If you wish to receive your payment, you will need to log into your AdSense account at google.com/adsense, and take the following action in order for us to process your payment. If you have trouble logging in, please use this troubleshooter.

 What? So they just realised that they didn't pay me, admit that they owe me and now want me to log into the account that I closed 4 years ago to "fix" the problem. This is just another scam. They know I can't log into the account, because it is closed. They know I already did all the things they listed as "reasons why I might not have been paid" because those were pre-requisites for closing the account with a refund.

I bet there is a report somewhere where some Google exec says "We always pay our content creators; unfortunately a small percentage fail to provide all the details we require (so we keep the money)".

Google still owes me £20.55

Travelers (2016)

 I have just rewatched all 3 seasons of Travelers back-to-back. Originally I think I watched the first 2 seasons when the second one came out and then the 3rd later. This time it was a real binge from start to finish.

The story establishes quite quickly that there are no "do overs" because the future cannot send information back in time beyond the last destination used. That is crucial because without it you would always be thinking "just go back and do that again, better". I also like that it is only information that can be sent back in time - somehow that seems more believable than actual objects and people traveling literally.

Whilst the missions (protocol 1) are often quite exciting and string together into a web of intrigue, it is the struggles of the travelers with their 21st century lives (protocol 5) that I really enjoyed the most. As with many shows, the peculiarity of our lives as seen by others is amusing and enlightening.

As the episodes roll by we get a lot of character development and a steady drip of information about the future. But as the future is constantly changing, due to the travelers actions, there is no was of really knowing what the actual future is "now" at any point, so to speak.

I loved the main characters and some of the supporting ones. It was a shame when it ended. They could, and still can, do a lot more with it. Protocol omega...

Tau

An original film from Netflix. Well, not that original. Tau is quite like Ex Machina in that it has a "bad man" making an ultimate AI. But in many ways it is more enjoyable because the guy is just mental and his antagonist is more believable.

There are some nice touches, but plenty of annoyances too. I get a bit tired of the "mad scientist" trope. Come on. People clever enough to make something that advanced a) don't do it on their own (especially the building) and b) are not psychopathic killers.

Nice touch having a "Julia" ... I wondered if the other guy was a "Winston".

One thing that disappointed was that I was convinced there was more to it than there was. If this project was so important to Alex then what was he doing going out all day every day and leaving Tau to deal with Julia?

There had to be a reason; and I was sure that Alex was watching the whole time and it was all about how Julia would teach Tau stuff that Alex couldn't.

But no. Alex was actually a psycho who just had to go out a lot. And...

Well, never mind. It was quite entertaining. Just not very clever.

The Bridge [Broen] [Bron] (series 4)

The Bridge (this one) is my favourite TV show of all time. Ever.

Nothing comes close in breadth of story and depth of character. The acting is superb. The writing is brilliant. The atmosphere is absolutely mesmerising.

I was very sad to hear that series 4 would be the last (and also that Martin would not be returning, again). And why only 8 episodes, not 10? But if you have to go, best to go out on a high with another cracking story rather than go on too long and risk a steady decline.

It is another roller-coaster ride. There are always a few strands of story that we assume might come together at some point... but you never quite see how until it does. People do terrible things, then you end up feeling for them... not sorry, just a speck of understanding. People get trapped in a corner, and you can't see any way out for them.

And all the while we see the personal lives of our well-loved characters being played out. Oh, how they suffer, but carry on living as well as they can...

The brutality of the crimes is shocking. Especially when turned on Henrik... how can anyone think the poor man hasn't suffered enough? I guess someone who buries a woman up to her chest and stones her to death (episode 1 - micro spoiler).

Even at the last, when everything seemed resolved, I was still worried that there might be one last cruel twist. And that last line of dialogue was absolutely spot on - it made me cry.

If I was forced to have my memory wiped and could only retain one TV show from the whole of my life... I would not hesitate to choose The Bridge.