The Shack (4 Stars)

Let's start off by saying that if you're a serious Christian, whether Catholic or Protestant, you'll find this film offensive. If you're a follower of another religion, such as Islam or Buddhism, you'll be alienated by the content. If you're an atheist you'll probably find it stupid. That means it will only appeal to you if you're a free thinker or a non-dogmatic Christian. It's a niche film that tugs at the heart strings without offering any real spiritual content.

Nevertheless, I found that the film spoke to me personally, despite the soppy country music interspersed with Christian pop songs.

Mackenzie Phillips (Mack) has grown up in a God-fearing community of church goers. His father was a church elder, a good man in church but a bad man at home, where he frequently used to get drunk and beat his wife and children. This wasn't enough to put Mack off religion. As a man he has a loving wife and three young children, and he sings the hymns loud in church every Sunday.

One weekend he takes his children on a Christian outing, a two day camping trip. His six-year-old daughter disappears. Her body is later found in a mountain shack. The police inform him that she's the victim of a serial killer who has already killed five other children. This destroys his faith and his family life. He no longer goes to church because he blames God for his daughter's death. His family is alienated and they hardly speak to one another.

A few years later Mack is seriously considering suicide, when he receives a letter. God is inviting him to travel to the shack where his daughter's body was found. This is the last place he would ever visit. At first he thinks it's a hoax, but the letter was hand delivered and there are no footprints in the snow, so he decides to travel to the shack.

When Mack arrives at the shack he finds it inhabited by three people, who claim to the the Holy Trinity, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. In a blatant presentation of gender confusion Octavia Spencer claims to be God and calls herself Papa. Mack spends the next two days talking to the three persons. They offer to make him the judge, and he has to tell them what they've done wrong. I won't go into it in any more detail. Spoilers!

Even as I was watching the film in the cinema I was putting myself into Mack's place. I would love to meet God, and I would be especially happy if I found out that God is a woman. Many of the questions that Mack asks are questions that I would ask. Then God has questions for Mack, and the answers he gives aren't necessarily the ones I would give.

I would love to meet God. If I found out that God looks like Octavia Spencer I would become an instant believer. I would challenge God on the questions that I have burning in my mind, some of which I presented in my review of "Silence". However, I suspect that Octavia's charm would overwhelm me into backing down in much of my criticism that I have of God.

It's a very good film, but it could have been better. Why did Mack have to meet the whole Trinity in the shack? It would have been enough just to meet with God herself. Jesus (on the left in the top photo in this post) seems to be a pleasant enough character as a drinking buddy, but he doesn't provide anything that God couldn't have done without him. The Holy Spirit, who calls herself Sarayu, moves around like a new age hippy, but she has little purpose in the film. If the shack had been inhabited by only one person, God, the film would have been accessible to a wider audience.

TV Series: The Flash

After spending a few days catching up on "Arrow" I've returned to watching "The Flash". I'm still in the first season. I started late, but what does it matter? Any series which is good today will still be good next year, the year after next and twenty years from now. There's no reason for me to be one of the first to watch a television series. In fact, watching new series as they're broadcast is a disadvantage. If I watch a series as it's being first broadcast on television there's the frustration of not knowing how a cliffhanger will be resolved; I have to wait a whole week. With complex series like "Heroes" there's the problem that by the time next week comes I will have forgotten what was happening in the last episode. Then there's the additional problem with "Lost" that some episodes ended on a cliffhanger, but this cliffhanger was ignored in the following episode and we had to wait a few weeks to see the matter resolved. For instance, at the end of Lost Series 3 episode 13 John Locke finds his father on the island inside a "magic box". The next episode ignores this, and the conversation between Locke and his father doesn't start until the 19th episode. It must have been torture waiting six weeks.

But let's get back to "The Flash". Season 1 episode 10 shows Captain Cold teaming up with Heat Wave. This is something that we saw in The Flash #140. In the comic the way the Flash survived the dual attacks of hot and cold is described in more detail. I missed the exposition in the television episode.

Barry Allen and Caitlyn Snow are reading about a research project called FIRESTORM online. It must be fascinating. It begins with the famous words "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet consectetur adipiscing elit", a direct quote from my review of "A walk among the tombstones". The article continues in pidgin Latin.

There are 800 pages to the article, which Barry reads at super speed. This is the 800th page, and it concludes in Latin. So what does it mean? I'll let you decide.

A. Scientists write their most important papers in Latin.

B. The producers of "The Flash" are sloppy.

Leave your votes in the comments.

Tiger Girl (4 Stars)

"Suicide Squad" has kicked off a trend of girls with baseball bats. They're not as erotic as whips, but do they have to be? Men like to be whipped for domination games. They pretend they're submitting to a dominatrix, and they have a safe word ready in case the whip stings too much. Fake subs like to retain control. It's not so easy to play games when baseball bats are involved. How can a man yell a safe word when he's lying on the floor with his brains oozing out of his shattered skull?

The film is about two girls in Berlin, Tiger and Vanilla. The film is more about Vanilla than Tiger, but I admit that "Vanilla Girl" would be less impressive as a film title.

Two women come together from different worlds. Margaretha wants to become a police woman. She fails the entrance test, so she begins to train to be a security guard. That's still a respectable career choice. Then she meets a completely different woman in a supermarket. She observes the woman shoplifting and wonders if she should report her. The two women approach one another, but don't speak. When Margaretha leaves the store she discovers that the woman has put food in her bag. She wants to corrupt Margaretha.

The woman follows Margaretha on the way home and introduces herself as Tiger. She renames Margaretha Vanilla, short for Vanilla the Killer. (In the Berlin dialect "-er" is pronounced the same as "-a", so for instance the words "Opa" and "Oper" sound the same). Tiger lives in a bus with two friends and invites Vanilla to join her. When Vanilla is almost raped at an underground train station Tiger teaches her to defend herself by hitting the men with a baseball bat.

Tiger also teaches Vanilla to be a bad girl. Why? Because it's fun. Vanilla steals two security guard uniforms so the girls can go out and have fun. They patrol shopping malls and stop men to investigate them as potential thieves. They take men into back rooms to perform a strip search. When the man is completely naked they steal his money and run away. Girls just wanna have fun.

As time develops Tiger realises that Vanilla is getting out of control. Being bad is too much fun. She begins to attack random people in the street. Tiger tries to calm her down, but it's too late.

This is a fascinating film that's rooted in Berlin culture. Situations occur that could hardly happen anywhere else. I don't know whether the film will ever be released with English subtitles, but if so I strongly recommend it.

Beauty and the Beast (4 Stars)

This is a fairy tale that can warm the hearts of young and old alike. A beautiful young woman is held captive by an ugly looking beast, but she sees the tenderness in his heart and learns to love him. While not strictly a romantic comedy, it follows the rules of romantic comedies. There's no suspense in the film. Everything is predictable, we know from the beginning that there will be a happy ending, but does it matter? Of course not. In the magical world of fairy tales we always know that the heroes will live happily ever after.

Maybe I have a twisted sense of aesthetics, but I didn't find the beast ugly at all. He might have been non-human with an animal-like face, but to me he wass a very handsome looking beast with a lovable expressive face. In contrast, when he finally assumed his human form at the end of the film I found he looked silly and unattractive. There was laughter in the mostly female audience when he was transformed. Did they think the same as me?

This is the must-see film of 2017. It's the year's most successful film so far, and it will be difficult for other films to out-perform it at the box office. It's considered a women's film because of the romantic elements, but that's unfair. Any man who doesn't enjoy it must have a heart of stone.

Evita (5 Stars)

When I compiled my list of 30 films to watch before you die I had to make some hard choices. I had to omit a lot of my favourite films. The first list I wrote had about 90 films in it. Every single film I removed hurt me, and each cut hurt more than the one before. In my process of elimination "Evita" plays a special role. It was the last film I removed from my list. If I added one more film "Evita" would be the 31st film. After watching it again today I had to ask myself if I made the right choice. It really should have been in my list, but if I wanted to put it back what would I remove? I have to save myself headaches and treat my 30 film list as final.

Watching the film once more today I was totally overwhelmed. I found myself crying within the first 10 minutes, and my eyes moistened again in scenes throughout the film, especially near the end.

Today I felt I could relate to the character of Antonio Banderas as the unnamed man in the crowd, the Vox Populi. That's who I am. I watch the leaders as they act. Sometimes I praise them. Sometimes I criticise them. Sometimes I criticise the people around me for wrongly judging the leaders, in my eyes. Is my opinion right? There isn't really a right or wrong, it's just an opinion, and my opinion might not even be based on accurate facts.

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Lammbock (3 Stars)

A day in the life? This is more like a week in the life of two drug dealers in southern Germany, somewhere near Würzburg.

Stefan and Kai are two young men who own a pizza delivery service which they call Lammbock. What makes their company special is that they also deliver marijuana. When you call them all you have to do is ask for the Special, and a small bag is added to the pizza. It's the perfect cover.

What they don't reckon with is that their crop of home-grown marijuana is struck with lice. The only person who can help them fight the lice is Achim, an undercover policeman. He's supposed to turn over criminals to his police colleagues, but in his undercover work he's come to appreciate marijuana, so his loyalties are divided between the police and his new friends.

I call this a day-in-the-life film because it lacks the character arcs that are usual in films of any genre. The two lead characters don't go anywhere. They don't develop. At the end of the film they're back where they were at the beginning, and it's doubtful that they've learnt anything from their adventures.

The film has some action in it, but it's more about the talking. It has a lot of similarities with "Reservoir Dogs", which is made more obvious by blunt references to the film in the dialogue. Maybe "Lammbock" has too much talking and not enough action. As an attempt to make a German Tarantino film it doesn't quite succeed. The magic is misssing.

Power Rangers (3 Stars)

I didn't expect this film to be very good, but the trailers looked pleasantly flashy so I gave it a chance. I should have listened to my initial instincts.

The film goes through three phases.

1. The teenagers meet and become friends. This is the best part of the film. It's the equal of any American high school drama series.

2. The teenagers gain their powers and begin training. This theme has been done in countless other films, usually better. It's watchable, but nothing special.

3. The teenagers go into battle. This phase looks ridiculously silly. We can't relate to the villain, and the kids themselves have no distinct identities as super-heroes. If it weren't for their five different colours it would be impossible to tell them apart.

I'll be generous and give "Power Rangers" three stars. From what I've read the film has been highly praised in audience polls. It seems to be aimed at young teenagers who wants films that are flashy and trashy with a lot of wham-bam-wallop. This is supposedly the first of six Power Rangers films. I doubt I'll watch the other five.

Thor: Dark World (5 Stars)

This has become one of the films that I watch the most, second only to "The Life of Pi". For that reason I don't have anything to say about it today, except that I've increased its rating to five stars. In the past my main reason for deducting half a star was that I found Dr. Selvig's madness annoying. After repeated viewing I've learnt to put up with it.

Oops. Are my screenshots from the film in this post spoilers?

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TV Series: The Flash

The last few days I've been watching "The Flash". I'm growing to like the series, as you can see by the fact that this is the second article I've written about it within a week.

The series features Candice Patton as Iris West, shown in the picture above. In the series she's a blogger, like me. Well, maybe not quite like me. Check out the following example of her blog posts, which we see in season one episode five. You can click on the screenshot to enlarge it.

As you can see, when she runs out of things to write she simply repeats the same text and hopes that nobody will notice. The second paragraph begins with the same words that she wrote in the middle of the first paragraph. I'm not as sloppy as her. I write good posts.

Something about Candice Patton has been bugging me. It seemed somehow familiar. Now I know where I've seen it before. As Iris West she has the same open-mouthed amazed smile when she sees the Flash that Chloe Sullivan used to have in "Smallville". I don't think it's a coincidence. Candice Patton and Allison Mack must be related. Remotely.

Cloud Nine (3 Stars)

I find this film very depressing. Maybe I'm in the minority. Other critics praise the film's positive, uplifting messages. When the film was shown at the Cannes Film Festival in 2008 it was given a ten minute standing ovation. I can understand that people like it because it's an original film, dealing with a taboo topic: sex between old people.

Werner and Inge are an elderly couple who live in Berlin. Inge is 69, Werner is 72. They've been married for more than 30 years. Inge has a part time job sewing clothes, whereas Werner devotes his spare time to his hobby: trains. It's a strange hobby that his wife doesn't share with him. He listens to recordings of trains pulling into stations. Why he would want to listen to recordings of trains is unfathomable, because a busy train line runs past their back door. I tried to locate the house, based on clues in the film. I can't be certain, but it has to be either in Pankow or Prenzlauer Berg, both areas in the former eastern zone of Berlin.

Inge falls in love with Karl, one of her customers. He's 76, older than her husband, but slightly fitter because he cycles a lot. The word "love" is stretching the description of their relationship. It's pure lust. The two have almost nothing in common, she just visits him to have sex. She confesses the affair to her daughter and talks about having butterflies in her stomach, but it's not romantic, it's just the feelings of physical desire in her.

Inge doesn't want to leave her husband. She still cares for him, but she wants the excitement of a sexual relationship with another man. Is she totally stupid? Doesn't she realise what she's giving up? It's not like her husband is mistreating her in any way. From the beginning of the film we see him treating his wife affectionately.

Even though the word isn't used in the film, it's about polyamory. The word has different definitions. Two conflicting definitions are:

1. the practice of engaging in multiple sexual relationships with the consent of all the people involved.

2. the state or practice of having more than one open romantic relationship at a time.

I've spoken to people who consider themselves polyamorous, and they always use the second definition. "I have too much love to give it all to one person". They're lying to themselves and to others. What they really mean is "I don't have enough love to dedicate myself to one person". If they stuck to the first definition there wouldn't be a problem.

Polyamory is always about sex. Sex feels good, we all know that. A person might not be prepared to settle down, so he or she can have multiple sexual partners for pleasure. I don't judge that. If his partners are happy with the situation it's okay. What isn't okay is to claim that he loves everyone he sleeps with. He's degrading the word Love.

If a man and a woman love one another they'll be faithful. I have been in many relationships in my life, some more serious than others, and I was always faithful. Sometimes I felt tempted, even during my serious relationships, but I loved my partner too much to risk my relationship for sexual pleasure. After 30 years of marriage Inge should have known better.

"Cloud Nine" is praised for showing that an old woman can enjoy sex just as much as a teenager. I criticise it for showing that an old woman can be as stupid as a teenager.

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A Cure For Wellness (4 Stars)

This is a film that's been savaged by the critics, but friends of mine who saw the film in England last month highly recommended it, so I had a choice. Do I listen to highly devoted film fans or the narrow-minded critics? That's a rhetorical question. I arrived at the cinema with my money in my hand.

The film begins in New York, but after the introductory scenes it continues in Switzerland. Roland Pembroke, the CEO of a large finance company, has gone to spend a few weeks in a health spa in Switzerland. The board of directors waits patiently for him to return, but they receive a letter from him -- a hand-written letter, not an email -- that he intends to remain in the health spa indefinitely. That raises panic, because they need his signature to agree to a merger. The board decides to send a young executive, Mr. Lockhart (whose first name is never disclosed), to persuade him to return.

And so Lockhart heads to the Swiss Alps, where he finds the spa housed in a castle on a mountain. The suspicious villagers who lived at the foot of the mountain already gave me a clue about what was to come. On his arrival Lockhart is obstructed in his attempts to speak to Mr. Pembroke. He decides to stay overnight at a hotel in the village, but on the way his taxi collides with a deer. He wakes up in the health spa three days later with his leg in a plaster cast. The head of the spa, Dr. Vollmer, offers to let him stay until his leg has healed. Lockhart agrees, but as he gets to know the other residents at the health spa he becomes aware of one fact: nobody ever leaves.

The film is delightful in many ways. The first half of the film is a Kafkaesque nightmare. Lockhart is repeatedly told that he's a patient in the spa, not a prisoner, but whenever he attempts to leave there are obstructions. It's also a mystery, as Lockhart tries to unveil the reason why nobody wants to leave. Then there's a horror story about the Baron who lived in the castle 200 years ago, a mad scientist who performed experiments on living humans to cure his wife's infertility. All the different stories intertwine to form a whole.

A few small facts detract from the overall quality. There are some unnecessary subplots. The opening scene with Morris, another company executive, dying of a heart attack, is superfluous to the story, and is only briefly mentioned later on. Lockhart's mother's psychic abilities add nothing to the story. The illegal dealings of Lockhart's company are also irrelevant. "A Cure For Wellness" has a running time of 146 minutes, and I have nothing against long films in principle, but if the unnecessary scenes were cut it would shorten the film and make the story much tighter.

The critics are wrong. It isn't a bad film, but it could have been better.

Kong: Skull Island (4 Stars)

This is the third remake of the 1933 film "King Kong". Was it necessary? That depends on the way you look at it. Peter Jackson's version, made in 2005, was such a towering cinematic achievement that it could never be equalled in quality, let alone surpassed. However, Warner Bros wants to make a film about a battle between Godzilla and King Kong, maybe followed by battles with other monsters, which would be difficult, considering that the 2005 version ended with King Kong's death. This means it was necessary for "King Kong" to be remade yet again, this time leaving the giant monkey alive.

It's obvious the film was intended to be a blockbuster. Several big stars were thrown into it, enough to attract any film goer. If I have to list the film's strong points, that's the biggest advantage. Samuel L. Jackson puts on an epic performance as the army colonel with a madness akin to Captain Ahab, driven by revenge. I can't remember when I was so impressed by him. John C. Reilly has never been one of my favourite actors, but he wowed me in his role as the abandoned US pilot. John Goodman also impressed me as the seasoned scientist. Tom Hiddleston is just Tom Hiddleston, he can't do a thing wrong. Those four actors carried the film for me. In comparison, Brie Larson was dull, maybe because I was comparing her with Naomi Watts. Jing Tian is one of my favourite actresses, but she was underused, spending too much time in the background. I hope we'll see more of her in the sequel.

Unfortunately, the film is less than the sum of its parts. It was let down by the silly story, which was little more than a last-man-standing yarn, in which all the minor characters were killed one by one while the major characters miraculously avoided death. In previous versions the other monsters on the island were an assortment of dinosaurs, but in "Kong: Skull Island" they're weird looking lizards and birds, plus a walking tree. I expected stunning special effects, but I was surprised to see that despite the advances in computer wizardry over the last 12 years the special effects aren't as good as in Peter Jackson's film.

"Kong: Skull Island" isn't a bad film, and it's better than the 1976 version, but it falls way behind the quality of the other two versions.

I almost forgot to mention the music. The film is set in 1972, so the music is all taken from the early 1970's. A lot of the music isn't just incidental music, it's music that's being played on a portable record player that the soldiers are carrying with them. To me the music was more thrilling than the film itself. When Black Sabbath's "Paranoid" began I couldn't control myself, I had to sing along with Ozzy. Not loud enough to disturb the other cinema guests, of course.

Logan (5 Stars)

As soon as I saw the first trailer in the cinema I knew this would be a different sort of X-Men film. If anything, Hugh Jackman himself must have insisted on the film being a change from his previous roles as Wolverine. He said well in advance that he wanted his next film as Wolverine to be his last. After eight films spread out over 17 years he felt that he was growing too old to play the role. He wanted his ninth and last film to be different. He's succeeded.

During Wolverine's lifetime it was commonly assumed that he's immortal. In the chronology of the X-Men films he was more than 100 years when he joined the team. In "Logan" we see that he's not immortal, he just ages slowly. The film takes place in the near future, 2029. His healing powers are failing, and he takes longer to recover from injuries. Some injuries don't heal at all, as we see from the fact that he walks with a limp. He's given up being a hero and prefers to use his birth name, Logan. He's a limousine driver, struggling to make a living.

All of his former companions in the X-Men are gone, presumably dead. The only survivor is Charles Xavier, formerly one of the most powerful mutants on Earth. Charles is suffering from dementia and has trouble controlling his powers. He has frequent seizures that cause everyone around him pain or paralysis. Charles is being kept in a fortified building in an uninhabited territory in Mexico where he can't hurt anyone. Logan visits him and brings him medication to calm him down.

Logan can't escape the past, however much he tries. In Mexico a woman approaches him who recognises him as Wolverine. She begs him to take her 11-year-old daughter to North Dakota, but why?

The film tells a very powerful story. It's a dark story that takes place in a dark world. To say more would give away too much of the plot for those who haven't seen it yet. However much I may have liked Hugh Jackman in the past, in "Logan" he gives the best performance of his life. It's probably the best of the X-Men and Wolverine films so far. I'll have to watch all nine back to back to make sure.

Up until now it's the most successful film of 2017, having earned $523 million at the box office. That's well deserved. It's also my favourite film of the year so far.

Off-Topic: Internet Censorship

Two years ago I wrote a post complaining about Internet censorship. The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) asked the company American Apparel to remove an image of a model advertising a body suit because she looked like she was under 16. It was irrelevant that the model, Kacy Anne Hill, was 20 at the time the photo was taken. All that mattered was the warped fantasies of the ASA who looked at an adult woman and immediately started fantasising about young girls.

After reading about the censorship I was fortunate enough to find that the allegedly offensive photo of Kacy was still on the American Apparel web site. It was removed later in the evening, so I posted it on my blog to protest against Internet censorship. I searched the American Apparel web site for other photos of Kacy, and I found 39 similar images which I saved to my hard drive. Within three days these photos were also removed from the site. As a result I decided to post a complete gallery of the 40 images to protect them from being lost forever.

I'm very pleased with the way my posts and the gallery have been received. On the day that I posted the photo it was nowhere else on the Web (according to Google). A week later it was on two other web sites. Now, two years later, the photo is available on 23 different websites, on many of them in its original size (1035 x 1380 pixels). I am proud that I am personally responsible for saving this photo from censorship. Today, as I write these words, my post about Kacy Anne Hill is the most viewed page in my blog. I hope that my readers will continue to download and share all 40 of her photos.

The main reason for my post was to make a stand against Internet censorship, but I also did it because I know it's what Kacy wants. She said in an interview that she finds the complaints about her photo ridiculous. I have the greatest possible respect for Kacy, and I am doing whatever I can to keep her photos alive. I hope that she will read these words and they will make her smile.

TV Series: The Flash

This afternoon I watched the first three episodes of the DC television series, "The Flash". Yes, I know I'm two years late. I never watch television as it's broadcast live. Most of the stuff that's broadcast is junk, so when I lived in England I didn't even have a television license. In Germany the law is different, unfortunately. Every household must pay for a television license, whether they own a television or not. There have been numerous court cases by people who think this is unfair, but none have succeeded.

For those of you who don't know much about the character, apart from what they've seen on television, the Flash is a character who first appeared in DC Comics in Showcase #4 in October 1956. This was an anthology comic which featured different characters each month as a trial. The more popular characters, based on the response from reader letters, were given their own comic. The Flash was featured in another three issues of Showcase, issues #8, #13 and #14. Finally he was given his own comic in March 1959 which ran for 26 years, until October 1985. The comic was cancelled due to his death in a storyline, but as all fans of Marvel and DC comics know, "Nobody stays dead except for Uncle Ben", so he came back to life in 2009. Some guys have all the luck.

Some comic fans are probably shouting at me to tell me that the Flash started much earlier, in Flash Comics #1 in January 1940. Yes and No. There was a character called the Flash who appeared for 104 issues of Flash Comics from 1940 to 1949, but it was a different Flash. He was a college student called Jay Garrick. The character who was introduced in 1956 was a police forensic expert called Barry Allen, a man who liked to read comics about Jay Garrick, the Flash.

After being struck by lightning Barry Allen adopted the name of the hero in the comics he loved so much, and he even based his costume on the comic. What he didn't know is that the character in the comics really existed. The author of the comics, Gardner Fox, claimed to have written stories that he dreamt about. In actual fact he was having visions of a parallel universe. A few years later (in Flash issue #123, September 1961) Barry accidentally travelled to this other world and met his hero. Over the following years there were other meetings between the two Flashes.

That's an interesting plot device, something I like about the story. In the comic someone reads a comic about a person he considers to be fictional, but is actually real. This provokes the question whether the comics that we read today are real or not. It's the opposite scenario to "The Matrix". In "The Matrix" it's suggested that there's a world outside of the one we live in. In the Flash comics it's suggested that there's another world inside our world.

Barry Allen was blond in the comics. A notably large percentage of the male heroes in the 1950's and 1960's comics had blond, bright yellow hair. I'm not sure why this was. Maybe it was a beauty ideal of the time. Maybe it was just because it was easier to draw. On a side note, it was customary for comics to draw black-haired people with blue hair, to avoid a black splodge of ink on the page. Blue looked like black on casual reading.

Ginger hair was also very common in the comics of the 1950's and 1960's, also intended to give a contrast between the characters. Barry Allen's girlfriend, Iris West, was ginger. It's a shame that she's fallen victim to the modern racist policy of making one major comic book character in each film and TV series black.

Yet another case of miscasting by studio executives who have no respect for the original comics. Barry should be blond, Iris should be ginger.

That brings me up to the current series, of which I've now watched the first three episodes. The series has a different feeling to the comics. Barry Allen is a forensic scientist, like in the comics, but he seems to be younger. His age isn't explicitly stated, neither in the comics nor the TV series, but in the comics he was very much an adult. If I had to peg his age I'd estimate he was about 30. In the series Barry Allen is played by Grant Gustin, who was 23 when the series began, but he looks and acts younger. I assume he's intended to be a college graduate at the beginning of his career, which would make him at least 21, but he looks and acts like a teenager. In his voice-overs he sounds like a clone of Tobey Maguire as Spider-Man.

The TV series tones down the silliness that I hated in the early DC comics. In the series his speed is top speed is measured at 347 miles per hour. Maybe he gets faster in later episodes, I'll see when I get to them. In the comics he breaks the sound barrier in his first adventure, within two days of gaining his powers. which would mean he was running at 767 miles per hour. In his second adventure he ran faster than the speed of light, so fast that he could break the time barrier and run forwards and backwards through time.

I jumped for joy when I saw that John Wesley Shipp plays the part of Barry's father, Henry Allen. I wasn't expecting to see him. He played Barry Allen in the previous Flash television series in 1990. As I remember, it wasn't as good as the new series as far as the special effects were concerned, but it had some very good stories. I need to watch it again.

But you have to admit that John Wesley Shipp's costume was closer to the original than Grant Gustin's costume. Why do they have to change everything? It's not right. Rather than invent new costumes for super-heroes the producers should look at the comics and try to copy the old costumes as closely as possible.

Before I finish, I'd like to point out that two newspaper reports were shown on computer screens in the second episode. Both articles are a shambles. The same texts are repeated over and over again. If you don't believe me, you can click on the following screenshots to enlarge them. That's so sloppy.

David Brent: Life on the Road (4½ Stars)

"You don't have to be on stage to be worth something".

This is a sequel to the TV series "The Office", which ran from 2001 to 2003. We had to wait 13 years for the film, but it was worth the wait. In the TV series David Brent was the manager of a paper company in Slough, supposedly the dullest town in England. I need to visit Slough one day to see if it's true. Since then he had a nervous breakdown and spent some time in a psychiatric facility. He now works as a sales representative for Lavichem, a company that sells exciting sanitary products such as tampons. David isn't satisfied with being a sales rep for the rest of his life. He dreams of becoming a big rock star.

"The Office" had a unique self-ironic format which confused television audiences and made it a failure when it was first broadcast. It was made in the style of a fly-on-the-wall reality show, with cameras following the activities of the company Wernham Hogg. The characters were aware they were being filmed and frequently spoke to the camera, as well as asynchronous interviews being blended in. However, it was an unreal reality show, since the company didn't exist. "The Office" is usually called a mockumentary, but I don't think the term applies. It wasn't a mockery of a documentary, it was a mockery of the reality shows that were becoming popular in the early 2000's.

"The Office" was conceived and written by Ricky Gervais, who also played David Brent. It was ahead of its time. It was cancelled after two seasons because of poor viewer figures, but it was posthumously hailed as a classic. It's now regularly shown as a rerun in England and all over the world.

"Life on the Road" follows David Brent as he takes three weeks unpaid vacation to make it big as a rock star. He hires musicians and a roadie, and off he goes to perform six gigs in Berkshire. For him it's all about the experience. He stays in hotels with the band, even though all six towns are close enough to commute from home.

The film's humour comes from David Brent's social awkwardness, more accurately from his ignorance of his social awkwardness. He alienates the other band members by unknowingly insulting them, and he alienates the audiences by singing inept protest songs. He never lacks confidence in himself, so when things go wrong he blames others.

There's an underlying tragic element to the story which uplifts the film from being only a comedy to a work of social significance. David Brent says he wants to be famous, but in actual fact he just wants people to like him. For some people it's easy to be popular, but for most of us it's a struggle to make friends. In David Brent we see an exaggerated portrayal of ourselves, so when we laugh at him we're really laughing at ourselves.

Ricky Gervais is a comic genius. "Genius" is an over-used word, but in his case it's appropriate. He can be funny without being funny. He excels in films like this.

In England the film has been released on Blu-ray, but Netflix has bought the exclusive rights in all other countries, so you can only watch the film online.

Elle (4 Stars)

Rape!

The worst possible crime that can be committed against a woman.

Murder is less harmful. If a woman is killed her suffering is over. If she's raped she suffers psychological damage for the rest of her life.

Additional harm comes from others, mostly from other men, whether they're the police, friends or casual acquaintances. The questions are always the same. "Was it really rape? Are you sure you didn't want it? Did you provoke the man?"

"Elle" begins with a rape, in the first seconds of the film, immediately after the credits. The rape scene is repeated in later flashbacks, first exactly as it happened, then an idealised version in which the victim imagines what she should have done to fight back. How often do rape victims play back the incident in their head? Every day for the rest of their lives?

The victim is Michèle LeBlanc, a 49-year-old businesswoman, rich, independent and self-confident. How could this happen to someone like her?

The truth is that it can happen to any woman.

After the attack, which takes place in her own home, Michèle acts as if nothing has happened. She takes a bath. She sweeps up the broken crockery in her living room. She doesn't report the incident to the police. She doesn't even tell her friends about it until a few days later. The only action that she takes which is directly connected to the rape is to visit a doctor to be checked for sexually transmitted diseases.

If Michèle wants to forget the rape, she can't. Over the next few weeks the rapist sends her messages, taunting her, suggesting he will do it again. She has to take steps to protect herself. Pepper spray, a gun and an axe. Yes, an axe. It's only a little axe, but big enough to make sure her assailant never rapes any woman again.

By this point in the film it seems like we can expect a typical rape'n'revenge thriller like "I spit on your grave", but the film heads in a different direction. The film slowly, painstakingly shows us every facet of Michèle's life.

Michèle is the owner of a software company that makes violent adventure games for Playstation 4. Her business partner is her best friend Anna, who she met in hospital when both women had a baby on the same day. Michèle is having an affair with Anna's husband.

Michèle's ex-husband is dating a young woman, a university student.

Michèle's mother is dating a man young enough to be her grandson.

Michèle's son is engaged to a woman who's unfaithful to him. He refuses to believe that her baby isn't his, even though the skin colour should have given it away.

Michèle's father is in prison after being convicted of killing 27 people when she was 10. He's one of France's best known serial killers. At the time of the murders Michèle was accused of aiding her father, but she was too young to be held responsible.

Who is the rapist? Why is he taunting her? The mystery slowly unravels before our eyes.

This is the director Paul Verhoeven's first film for 10 years, and his first ever film made in French. For the last 30 years he's been making big budget films for international audiences. films like "Basic Instinct", "Robocop", "Hollow Man" and "Starship Troopers". "Elle" is a return to his roots as an independent film maker. Even the simple, unadorned opening credits give the film an indy feel, and this atmosphere is strengthened by the sparse use of background music. The film reminds me, stylistically, of "The Fourth Man", which he made in 1983.

This is an excellent film, not easy to classify, but spellbinding from beginning to end. It's a film I need to see again.

Hot Bot (2 Stars)

I've been watching too many bad films lately. I need to find something better to watch. The short synopsis that I read made it sound good, but I was disappointed with the film from the first 10 minutes onwards.

A lot of films that I find disappointing have good special effects and maybe even good actors, but they're let down by the story. In the case of "Hot Bot" it's different. The story itself is an excellent idea which could have been the foundation of a world-wide blockbuster, but the acting and the film production let the film down.

It's a very topical story. A company called Hot Bot Technologies has invented an ultra-realistic sex doll. As well as feeling real to the touch, it walks and talks like a woman. However, the bot's greatest advantage is its artificial intelligence (AI) and learning capabilities. When it's delivered it has basic functions of offering sex to its owner. As time goes by it learns from speaking and interacting with the owner. It, or rather she, learns what the owner wants and becomes the perfect companion, not just sexually, but also a good conversation partner.

I like the sound of that. But let's carry on.

An American senator buys one of the early prototypes, Bardot 2.7. The price tag is $500,000. Slightly out of my price range, I'm afraid. The road is bumpy, and Bardot is accidentally turned on (pun intended) in the delivery van. She seduces the two drivers, then when they're unconscious and exhausted she runs to find another man. She's hit by a car driven by two teenage boys, Linus and Leonard. They think she's dead, so they pick her body up and take her home. Why don't they call the police? Leonard gives the answer: "We can do things with her that we'll never be able to do with a girl when she's alive". The boys are obviously still virgins, and judging by their looks and attitudes they'll remain virgins for a long time.

Bardot wakes up, but she's still behaving erratically, so the boys realise that she's not a real person. They take her to a sex shop to ask for advice. The owner recognises what she is, probably from reading trade magazines, and he repairs her. Linus wants to have sex with her, but it's too late. The next day he leaves her at home while he goes to school. But then disaster strikes.

Linus comes from a very religious Christian family. I don't see much physical resemblance between him and his Dad, but that's just one of the film's loose ends. While Linus is at school his younger sister Shaqobi discovers Bardot and starts talking to her. She gives her a Bible and asks her to accept Jesus into her life. When Linus gets home Bardot has changed. She says that she refuses to have sex before marriage.

Then there's the added problem that the Senator has sent his men to find the bot. That's hardly surprising, since he's paid half a million dollars for her.

If you think my description makes it sound like a great film, that's my point. It's a great story, but everything else about the film is poor. In the hands of a better director, someone like Fred Olen Ray, the film would have been a masterpiece, and Fred would probably have completed it with half the budget. He's an expert at making high quality films with a small budget.

If you're interested in films about sex dolls that come to life, check out "Air Doll" instead. That's a much better made film. I still wish that "Hot Bot" could be remade more competently.