Watching - March 2022

The Good Place (Season 4, 2019)

We managed to watch all four seasons of The Good Place as a family, which must say something about the quality of the programme. Season 4 was obviously written knowing that it would be the last, as the feel of the programme changes from sitcom to - well, not drama, exactly, since it's still more comedy than anything else, but to gentle humour, hung around the overall story. The last episode is sweet and moving. Very highly recommended.

Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (2017)

This was on the telly, so I decided to watch it again (albeit I actually watched it off our Plex server, since we own it). Excellent fun, great action, some decent acting (apart from Kevin Hart, who just plays himself) and a couple of sweet scenes between Karen Gillan and Dwayne Johnson.

Bohemian Rhapsody (2018)

I've been talking to Z about watching this for ages and he seems interested, apart from not actually setting a time! Eventually I got bored of waiting and watched it anyway. Great fun, but again, I was completely distracted towards the end by the fact that the characters still appear to be in their mid-twenties. Afterwards I watched the real Live Aid set from 1985, and although they've clearly gone a lot of trouble to match all the movements, clothes and sound, they've missed something minor and yet vital. In the film, there's loads of cutaway shots to Brian, Roger and John where they keep looking at the crowd or, more, at Freddie, like they can't believe they're here or amazed at how Freddie is controlling the crowd. I know it fits the film's narrative but it's completely wrong. Watch the real set and there's none of this: they are very confident, they've done this literally hundreds of times, they know exactly what they're doing and what Freddie is capable of - which makes more sense, really, as by this time they'd been playing together for fifteen years and played bigger venues than Wembley.

Count Me In (2021)

I don't play drums but I always fancied having a go. Unfortunately I've never been able to get past the space needed or the sheer volume they would generate. My family might not consider that I play guitar quietly but compared to drums, it's a whisper. Anyway, this is a somewhat disposable but star-studded documentary featuring an fantastic array of famous and no-so-famous drummers, talking about how they started, why they play and so on. It features a number of female drummers too, which was good to see. A bit like It Might Get Loud for drummers.

Echo in the Canyon (2019)

An appreciation of the music coming out of Laurel Canyon rather than a documentary, and a chance for Jakob Dylan to go and talk to a whole array of the people who were there. Some great music and some interesting interviews (David Crosby: "Want to know why I was really fired from The Byrds? It's 'cos I was an asshole"), but very oddly doesn't mention Joni Mitchell at all, who from what little I know was central to the scene. Perhaps she didn't want to be involved but you'd think she'd at least warrant being talked about. Otherwise, nice enough.

Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994)

There's lots to like about this film if you leave out the final wedding. Without it, there's plenty of humour and a gently moving story about two people who find each other but never at quite the right time in their lives. Of course it has to be wrapped up somehow and so we get the needlessly implausible final scene. (I'm trying to think of a better way to end it, happily. In fairness, I can't - but then I'm not a multi-millionaire scriptwriter ...)