Watching - February 2023

Roxanne (1987)

The outfits and the music absolutely scream "80s" but the story is pretty timeless. I think this might have been the first Steve Martin film I saw. He's great in it but the obvious age difference between him and Daryl Hannah always bothered me. It doesn't stop it being a sweet film though.

Life on Mars (Series 1) (2006)

I first came across Life on Mars accidentally, via a free DVD in a newspaper or something. I didn't watch it on TV as it wasn't (and still isn't) really my usual sort of thing and anyway, with three very young kids I didn't have the time. But then I needed something to watch during the night while I was trying to get Z to sleep (at least, I assume it was him - I remember a very young baby!) so I tried it and was hooked. To start with, I think it was the re-creation of 70s Britain, an era I lived through but only sort of remember (I would have been about the same age as Sam Tyler, 4 or 5) that I found so evocative, and the juxtaposition of that with modern day sensibilities. But the action scenes are fun, and each episode is a kind of whodunnit which is fun too.

Life on Mars (Series 2) (2007)

More of the same - but when the original series was this good, why mess with it? Some of the characters become a little one-dimensional - Gene Hunt is always pissed off (magnificently so, but still), Ray Carling is always a sexist thug - and you start wondering whether any of the minor characters actually do anything at all other than sit around smoking, but overall it's still a great world to be in. Slowly developing through this series though is the idea, left more ambiguous in the first series, that Sam is in some sort of limbo world, from which he can only escape by betraying the people he's become friends with. Eventually this comes to a satisfying (albeit slightly unsettling, when you really think about it) conclusion. 

Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (2022)

I'm struck again how Daniel Craig's Benoit Blanc is so much more like Poirot than Kenneth Branagh's actual Poirot. The film is a bit silly and over-the-top but hugely entertaining.

The Breakfast Club (1985)

Unlike Pretty in Pink, this wasn't a disappointment when watching it again after all these years decades. It's an unusual film to be so well known, it seems to me: it feels like a play, with a lot of character study and little plot. But it's perfectly judged to appeal to teenagers.

Down With Love (2003)

Here's an odd film that wants to be an update of 50s/60s romcoms like Pillow Talk (from which it swipes most of its plot structure) while at the same time being a pastiche (or more generously, a tribute) of that style. As a result, it ends up being a bit too pleased with its own cleverness to convince and too contrived to fully entertain. The casting is a bit off too: Renée Zellweger spends too much time posing and Ewan McGregor isn't sleazy enough. Not really worth the time, if I'm honest.

Judy (2019)

I didn't mean to watch two Renée Zellweger films in a row but this doesn't really deserve comparison with the previous one. Without being a complete biopic of Judy Garland's life but by just zooming in on a couple of months late in her life, with occasional flashbacks to her early life as a child star, it manages to convey a sense of how exploited her life was, and how her only remaining solace is performing; not because that's what she loves but because it's all she's been left with. Zellweger is a revelation - almost unrecognisable as Garland and brilliantly capturing her mannerisms. The end is borderline mawkish but it worked for me. Very good.

Wednesday (2022)

We watched this series over the course of several weeks as a family. It's emo AF but entertaining and enough to keep me interested. Overall, it's not really my thing, but nice to share with the kids. What it did highlight was the very different ways we watch. K & Z are constantly chatting, taking the mickey out of things, looking at their phones, and yet still manage to follow what's going on. They'd have happily watched all eight episodes in one or two sittings. I, on the other hand, could only manage one episode at a time and I found that hard to take in because those flippin' kids would not stop talking! I'm feeling old.

Reading - February 2023

The Fifth Elephant by Terry Pratchett (1999)

Terry Pratchett's Discworld books, particularly the later ones, often leave me feeling that I've missed something that I'm not quite intelligent enough to grasp. Perhaps that's the point in this case, since we experience most of the story through Samuel Vimes' perspective, who also has that feeling. Nevertheless, this is masterly storytelling, teeming with ideas and sweeping you along. Great stuff.

Evil Under the Sun by Agatha Christie (1941)

Classic Christie, classic Poirot. A surprise twist that made sense once explained, but I never work out these things in advance - even though, in this case, I've read it before! Easy reading for bedtimes.

Terry Pratchett: A Life With Footnotes by Rob Wilkins (2022)

Terry Pratchett was a phenomenon. I'm no publishing expert but I can't think of another writer with such quality and quantity, and his books are stuffed full of ideas in almost careless abundance. It might be a bit of a cliché but lesser authors would have reserved whole books for just one or two of the kind of ideas that Pratchett seemed to have by the dozen. Rob Wilkins was Pratchett's PA for over twenty years and clearly regards his late boss with awe and love. Yet despite all of these things and despite being written by an obviously partial observer, Pratchett comes across as, well, a bit of an arse. I've said before that if someone is described as "blunt", "direct" or "not suffering fools gladly" then what you're actually hearing about is just rudeness, dressed up to try and excuse it. Perhaps he was charming enough in person to get away with it, but it honestly doesn't sound like it. It doesn't exactly disappoint me because it has no bearing on the books, which I will still really enjoy, but I don't accept the reasoning that says this kind of behaviour is okay because "artistry" or "specialness" or something. Anyway, notwithstanding all this, the biography itself is interesting and very moving towards the end as it describes Pratchett's slow - and then not so slow - descent into dementia. Worth a read.

Watching - January 2023

Meet Cute (2022)

I chose this on Amazon Prime (thanks for the free subscription guys) because it was a time-travelling romantic comedy and I kind of like those. There's an obvious comparison with (and heavy debt to) Groundhog Day, but little of the development or, frankly, comedy. Sheila (the time traveller) just seems to make the same mistakes again and again, and get fed up with them. I was waiting for some sort of twist with Gary (the other character) revealing that he's also a time traveller, but that doesn't happen (not exactly anyway). They finally sort themselves out but we don't see what happens after - which is annoying, because logically speaking, going by the rules explained in the film, the time loop should completely unwind again, so actually it might not end up happily.

Trading Places (1983)

I can't quite believe this is forty years old! A bit broad-brush in places (and of course just racist and sexist in others - there's a warning before the film in case anyone should feel like being offended) but still basically very funny. Ripe for a remake?

Palm Springs (2020)

Yet another time-loop concept (turns out there's loads), with plenty of familiar concepts but a more modern take and some nice new ideas. It's a romcom, so we know it's going to end happily, but it's a good story and there's plenty of laugh out loud moments. Recommended (although not if you're squeamish or easily offended).

Fisherman's Friends (2020)

Only "based on the true life story" of Fisherman's Friends in the loosest sense, as presumably the real story was considered too dull. Instead what we get is an odd mix of fact and fiction, which feels like the industry standard number of dramatic elements (love interest, a death, dramatic break up etc) has been added to tick the right boxes. In fairness, it mostly does: the result is an enjoyably light drama that has some of the same feel as the classic Local Hero, and made an ideal Sunday afternoon film.

Naked (2017)

Perhaps I went a bit too deep into the list of time loop films. This is predictable stuff and has the usual dénouement: man learns about himself and how to love, and makes lots of new friends along the way. But they've only known him an hour or two, so what are they all doing in the final scene? Very average.

Local Hero (1983)

I thought Fisherman's Friends reminded me of this film, but after watching it again I realise that this is by far the superior film. It has a beautiful sense of place and a lovely whimsical tone. Great stuff.