Watching - July 2022

The Proposal (2009)

As predictable as the sun rising, but nice with it. Sandra Bullock is as convincing as she can be, given the somewhat preposterous plot, as a career woman who rediscovers her emotions and falls in love with both Ryan Reynolds and his family. What he sees in her is less obvious, unless he's always secretly been in love with her and just needs to accidentally see her naked to push him over the edge. Still, Reynolds is as engaging as you'd expect, albeit more convincing when he's being a smart-ass than when he's doing sincere. An acceptable way to spend a couple of hours one afternoon.

Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991)

I must have watched this originally on TV (and we had a copy that was recorded off TV), as now I watch on DVD there are significant chunks that I do not remember at all - and fairly important parts too. The plot's decent, and if the special effects look a bit clunky now, well, that's because it's over thirty years old!

Die Hard With a Vengeance (1995)

I remember going to see this with C in High Wycombe Odeon when it was released. We'd decided we wanted to watch something fairly undemanding but "with some big bangs" - which, if you know the start of this film, certainly matches up! It's aged reasonably well, although I think the sandwich board incident at the beginning would almost certainly not get included these days, and you'd hope they'd manage at least one or two better female roles. Preposterous but good clean fun.

My Life as a Rolling Stone (2022)

The Rolling Stones - as you've seen them many times before!

High School Musical (2006)

Slightly unexpectedly, High School Musical is probably our favourite film as a family. It's a combination of engaging characters, cheesy plot and songs that are much better than they have a right to be. We can watch it and make fun of it while still enjoying it.

Rock Family Trees: The Rise of Cool Britannia (2022)

Notwithstanding the title, this was a programme about Suede and how they started Britpop and then grew out of it. (Do they have a new album out soon, by any chance?) It wasn't really a proper rock family tree - of the claimed "three biggest bands of the 90s", only Suede and Elastica are linked and all that makes is a flat shrub, rather than a tree - and it only featured a few of the players of the time: no Bernard Butler, none of Blur, Pulp, Oasis or other more minor players. I was also irritated by the programme's lazy characterisation of prime Britpop as some sort of cheeky, end-of-pier, Carry On style of music. Sure, you had songs like "Parklife" and Supergrass's "Alright", but you didn't have to go far beyond the singles to find more depth, even on the same albums (try "This is a Low" or "She's So Loose"), let alone later ones. I guess it suits Suede to position themselves as perennial outsiders. Still, it was fun to relive the times (I recall Suede's first single launch gig in the basement of Rough Trade in Neil's Yard with much fondness) and Justine Frischman was a great interviewee, unlike Brett Anderson and Matt Osman who looked awkward and self-conscious. I suspect that might be because she has nothing to sell and no image to maintain.

Minions: The Rise of Gru (2022)

Enjoyable outing with the family to a Sunday matinee showing at the cinema (now much more affordable, thanks to Vue's pricing). The film isn't going to win any prizes for plot or subtlety, but it has many very funny moments and a great soundtrack (thanks to Jack Antonoff of Bleachers, who I am going to see in September).

Hello Quo (2012)

Status Quo is a band I knew little about, bar the obvious singles, until a Fretboard forum listening party for Blue For You (1976). The album's not bad at all and a lot more varied than I expected. So I was interested to see this history of the band. I loved finding out that their future direction was set in the late 60s by seeing The Doors performing "Roadhouse Blues" live - as soon as Francis Rossi mentioned it, I could hear the link between them exactly. There's plenty of footage here (and all over YouTube) to show how tight and effective they were as a band, something that's harder than you'd think. Unpretentious music, workmanlike sometimes but at its best a real rock force (and as an aside, this picture of them, from the mid-70s, is superb)

The Martian (2015)

Having read the book, I had to watch the film. It skips some details but is marvellously visualised. The main character isn't quite such a smart-arse as in the book, which is a shame as this was the characteristic I found most attractive. There's a few film cliché moments inserted into the plot and an unnecessary coda, but otherwise it's surprisingly true to the source material. Very enjoyable.

Reading - July 2022

Love is the Drug edited by John Aizlewood (1994)

Entertaining, albeit slightly repetitive, recounting by various music journos of the time (plus a few celebs) of their fandom for a particular artist. In some cases, all they're telling us is why so-and-so is their favourite, whereas in others it's a full-blown obsessiveness. Interesting, but doesn't pass the key test of any book about music: in no cases was I inspired to go and listen to the music. I've had this book for a long time - probably since it was published - and now I've read it again, I'm not sure why it survived the Great Book Cull of '17. Destined for the charity shop, I think!

Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom (1997)

A worldwide phenomenon, apparently, albeit one that has completely passed me by - I found this in the book exchange at work. According to Wikipedia, it's one of the best selling memoirs ever, and I can kind of see why: it's sweet, easy to read and has a nice message. It's also sentimental, simplistic and possibly a bit shallow - qualities that probably also don't harm its appeal to a wide audience (yes, I'm being snobbish). The book's subject - Morrie Schwartz - seems like he was a lovely man who encouraged people to live simply and enjoy what they have. I don't think I'm overly simplifying here. It's a good moral, one we should all remember, and if it takes a book to remind you of it, then fine.

Prisoners of Geography by Tim Marshall (2019)

Essentially an explanation about why the geopolitics of various regions fundamentally shape their history and policies, this is eerily correct about Russia's current actions, particularly given that it was originally published in 2015 (albeit updated in 2019). It adopts a curiously passive and neutral stance on countries' actions, explaining blandly that, for example, Putin had "no choice" but to annex Crimea, and initially this irritated me, because of course he had a choice. The only perspective in which he has no choice was that in which all other leaders are equally paranoid and opportunistic, and sadly, this is probably correct. It's also self-perpetuating, but inevitable. Ultimately, this is a book about why toxic nationalism is going to always be with us. Hard going and depressing.

Summer at the Lake by Erica James (2013)

A nice modern romance, with flashbacks to an older story embedded in it. The characters were engaging enough to keep me reading, but were a little one-dimensional, while the story was predictable in the best kind of way (i.e. it ends happily), albeit with a sudden injection of several dramatic elements all at once towards the end, which unbalanced it a little. Pleasant bedtime reading.

The Martian by Andy Weir (2011)

I'd never heard of this (or the film made from it) until I read about it, catching up on old xkcd comics. It's an odd book in some ways, a patchwork of different viewpoints, different styles and fairly relentless technical detail, but the central character has such a winning personality that he carries the plot and left me really wanting it to all work out (I did peek at the ending fairly early on to make sure it was a happy one). It threatened to degenerate into a series of unfortunate events but I suppose that's fairly realistic, given how hostile Mars would actually be, and in any case it didn't stop me enjoying it. I'm now looking forward to watching the film!

My Life as a Rolling Stone

BBC, 2022

The Rolling Stones - as you've seen them many times before!

The Word magazine used to have a question on their web site when you signed up: "Beatles or Stones?" (there was also a third option, "actually I preferred The Monkees". It was that kind of humour - I really miss The Word magazine.) But for me, there's never been a question about it: The Beatles released a dizzying array of music in less than ten years, whereas the Stones ... well, put it like this, when I was compiling my favourite songs of the sixties recently, I could add almost all of every Beatles album, but only a song or two at most from each Stones album. 

Now don't get me wrong, there's some classics there - but also an awful lot of dross, frankly. They've produced little music of interest since the early seventies, and nothing at all in the last forty years, something I think they're very well aware of, as a brief look at their set lists over the last few years shows. But somehow this hasn't stopped them becoming the "greatest rock 'n' roll band in the world".

What has always distinguished The Rolling Stones, to my mind, is the incredibly effective way they've publicised themselves. From the very beginning, when Andrew Loog Oldham deliberately set them up as the opposite of those nice, clean Beatles, through to right now and this impeccably stage-managed documentary series, they've always had superb control over their public image, which in many ways has defined the "rock rebel" stereotype.

The format - one episode for each of Mick, Keith, Ronnie and Charlie - manages to cover a lot of history, but it's a curiously incomplete picture. You could count the number of times Bill Wyman was mentioned on the fingers of one foot. Sure, he's not been in the band since 1993, but he was there for all the important moments. A complete history would include him, but this wasn't it. There was maybe five minutes in total featuring Brian Jones, and a minute including Mick Taylor (easily the best guitarist to be a member of the band).

Maybe this wasn't the point, and the idea was tell the individuals' stories. You could be forgiven for feeling that they were being pretty candid - after all, their history is pretty well known and Keith and Ronnie, in particularly, are well known for being rowdy rock 'n' roll bad boys. Conveniently, that means that the documentary can talk fairly freely about their well-known drug use, because that doesn't actually harm their image at all. But what about the women? We don't hear so much about that.

This was an enjoyable series and worth a bit of time to watch, but felt more like a very extended advertisement for The Rolling Stones and their latest tour than a real documentary. There was little new here and nothing that made me want to revisit any of their music. But then perhaps it's not aimed at me.