Reading - December 2023

One Fine Day in the Middle of the Night by Christopher Brookmyre (1999)

I have several other books on the go (which partially explains the non-appearance of a November reading blog post and the shortness of this one) but today I just fancied something escapist and known. This is perfect. If darkly comic thrillers sounds like your thing, read this.

The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight by Jennifer E. Smith (2012)

I realise I'm not exactly the target audience of another YA novel about meeting the boy of your dreams at the age of 17 but nevertheless this didn't quite live up to the promise of the film for me. Whereas the film manages to inject a kind of magical unreality (hyper-reality? I'm no film student), this is a bit mundane and earth-bound by comparison. Cute though, and nice and short.

Watching - December 2023

Much Ado About Christmas (2021)

The only parallels between Much Ado About Nothing and this Hallmark holiday pot-boiler are the names of four of the characters, as I can see no plot similarities at all. Fairly mundane but cute enough.

Christmas at the Holly Day Inn (2023)

The Guardian's review describes this as a "British micro-budget" Christmas movie, and it's hard to disagree when you see the minimal sets and lack of any other actors in most scenes. It hits all the requisite plot points without ever really engaging the emotions, and although the leads try hard, I found it hard to suspend any kind of disbelief enough to be swept up in it. I used to enjoy a naff Christmas romance film but I swear they are getting worse. I might have to find something else to occupy December weekends.

Hired Gun (2017)

An interesting, varied but ultimately slightly patchy insight into session musicians: the men and occasionally women who play alongside your favourite bands and often make the music what it is. With a bit of a focus on the more rock end of the music spectrum, this gets full marks for including the less glamorous aspects of the job: dealing with egotistical stars, worrying about the prospect of instant unemployment and all for what seems like fairly minimal remuneration. Entertaining (Steve Lukather's story about him and Jay Graydon writing "Turn Your Love Around" is hilarious - but then Luke is always good value), but a bit repetitive and marks deducted for the unnecessary but presumably contractually obliged "look at me!" jams at various points.

Land of the Rising Sound (2019)

A documentary about Roland, primarily its synthesizers and drum machines, since its inception. Despite the cultural impact of the music enabled by Roland's innovations - there's whole swathes of modern music that wouldn't exist without machines like the TR-808 or the TB-303 - this is still pretty niche stuff, so it's great that someone's been able to make a quality documentary and put it on YouTube.

10 Things I Hate About You (1999)

Came across this on the telly and had to watch it. Still fantastic at almost 25 years old.

An Honest Liar (2014)

I'm not quite sure if James Randi was actually as famous as he liked to portray himself, but a man is probably allowed to tell his own story his own way. What I can't fault is his mission to debunk paranormal and parascience claims (his famous million dollar challenge never had to pay out, and let's be honest, was never at risk), but there's a certain poignancy about the fact that he was fighting a losing battle, as people want to believe. Nevertheless, an interesting film about an interesting character.

Dig! (2004)

I've been meaning to watch this for ages, as it's a classic rock documentary, having even been acquired by The Museum of Modern Art. But I'm left wondering what the fuss was about. The basic problem is that the superlatives thrown around about the music and in particular about Anton Newcombe, the leader of The Brian Jonestown Massacre, are completely at odds with the mediocre, shambolic reality of the songs played in the film. Newcombe is obviously charismatic enough to take people with him, but that doesn't translate outside of a personal sphere and certainly not into this edit, where he just comes across as a typical junkie arsehole with a god complex. The Dandy Warhols come out better: they've obviously been prepared to work at their music, even if it's derivative to the point of parody. In much the same vein as The Decline of Western Civilisation, one to tick off the list but not of much interest otherwise.

Pride & Prejudice (2005)

I am once again indebted to the wonderful Caroline Siede for her review, which made me want to revisit what had been filed away in my brain as an adaptation inferior to the iconic BBC series. It turns out I was wrong: this is hugely enjoyable and in many respects better, not least with the casting, which was always one of my main gripes with the series. Here, they've got it right: the Bennett sisters all actually look their ages rather than attempting to play down. Being a two hour film, it is necessarily compressed and I felt in particular that a sense of Elizabeth's change in feelings towards Darcy was too quick, but it still hit all the right spots. Keira Knightley is very good, Darcy and Bingley are engagingly awkward and human, the staging is fantastic and the feeling of unbridled romanticism is all its own. Perhaps that's not quite true to the novel but I loved it anyway, sentimental old git that I am. Now go and read that review, it's very insightful.

Sharing Christmas (2017)

Another Hallmark Christmas, er, special. The slenderness of the plot is not enough to support the occasional emotional outburst (the guy quits his job to help our heroine - on the basis of a couple of days acquaintance and the fact that he likes her shop? Umm ...) Absolutely the equivalent of a decent Silhouette romance, this is utterly predictable but sweet nonsense anyway (and, in fairness, easily the best of these type of films I've seen this year).

Broadcasting Christmas (2016)

The main attraction of yet another CCR (crappy Christmas romcom - I'm going for new terminology here) is the presence of Melissa Joan Hart (who also produces) and Dean Cain, which indicates a decent budget and possibly a better overall film. It's unfair (and, yes, a bit shallow) to compare the leads here to their mid-90s heyday but it took me a while to adjust to the way they look now (hey, we're all getting older). Once I got past that, this was a typical but well-made Hallmark Christmas romance: cute, sentimental and inoffensive. (side note: directed by one Peter Sullivan, who was also responsible for Sharing Christmas and, it turns out, is something of a specialist in this field.)

Disco: Soundtrack of a Revolution (2023)

House music was essentially disco, and all current dance music is descended from house; disco is the bedrock of most modern pop music. This isn't news - I remember reading all about this in the brilliant Last Night a DJ Saved My Life (1999), and if they'd made this documentary in the early 2000s then they might have got to interview a bunch more people. Nevertheless, an interesting overview for anyone who thinks disco was just a weird 70s thing.

Porridge (Series 1) (1974)

I caught a bit of this on telly in passing and went back to iPlayer to watch it from the beginning. It's a classic of course, showing its age in some of the language and attitudes (it is fifty years old, after all), but sharply written and, best of all, superbly played by Ronnie Barker. A nice little trip down memory lane.

The Rewrite (2014)

Slight but sweet and watchable Hugh Grant vehicle that, ironically, is basically just a retread of Music and Lyrics from seven years earlier, and from the same writer/director as well, Marc Lawrence. Grant is as convincing as always (no, I really mean that, I think he's a superb actor), this time as a washed-up screenwriter forced to take a teaching job at a small US university to pay the bills and gradually coming to realise that he enjoys teaching and is good at it. I could have done without the subplot about an affair between Grant and a much younger woman, as it seemed inconsistent with the rest of the film and more like a middle-aged man's fantasy (er, OK, possibly this middle-aged man's fantasy occasionally too - but still out of place here). I did like that there wasn't any big emotional ending but a nicely downplayed reconciliation between Grant and Marisa Tomei (excellent as usual), and overall the film was well-paced and had some lovely moments.  

Two Weeks Notice (2002)

The previous film led me on to this, apparently the first of Hugh Grant's collaborations with Marc Lawrence, and which I had been meaning to watch for a while anyway. Hugh Grant is very, well, Hugh Grant - I mean, even more than usual. There are gestures and inflections straight out of Four Weddings or Love, Actually and that annoyed me slightly, but Sandra Bullock is very good, and the relationship between them works well. However, points deducted for featuring orange arsehole Donald Trump (I almost stopped watching right then, on principle) and even more for using the appalling Counting Crows cover of "Big Yellow Taxi" not just once, but twice (side note: I was immensely amused to discover, after I wrote that previous sentence, that the track is widely considered to be one of the worst cover versions of anything, ever)

About Time (2013)

There are so many things I can find fault with in this film, even leaving aside the usual Richard Curtis irritations. Firstly, the dialog is unforgivably clunky in (many) places; secondly, I am fully prepared to accept that Domhnall Gleeson may be very good in many productions, but this is not one of them; and having taken the trouble to set up a universe with time travel, the film then fails to be self-consistent or even particularly interested in the concept except as an occasional gag or way of solving plot holes. But despite all this, for some reason the film stays with me. Partly this is the appeal of being able to go back in time and fix things, and partly because film's message is a nice one (even if Curtis thinks we're too stupid to work it for ourselves and insists, in one of the  film's more face-palmingly clunky moments, on having Gleeson spell it out for us). But mostly it's because there are some scenes that I find genuinely touching, regardless of how much Richard Curtis pushes the sentimentality button (and let's be honest, he doesn't so much push it as repeatedly smash it down with a sledgehammer - subtle it ain't). Ultimately worth it for those bits. And Rachel McAdams is very good.

The Map of Tiny Perfect Things (2021)

Third time of watching in about four months! It's really sweet and the two lead actors (Kathryn Newton and Kyle Allen) give nicely nuanced performances. Plus, since it's an Amazon original, it's not available on DVD as far as I can tell, otherwise I'd buy it, so I watched it while I have free Prime.

Blade Runner: The Final Cut (1982)

I'm not quite sure what I expected from such a legendary film - one I'd somehow managed to avoid seeing or even knowing much about - but a gothic, noir-ish, dystopian vision that barely shows its forty years wasn't it, for some reason. It's obvious why it's been so influential. However, for something based on a Philip K. Dick novel, the plot is surprisingly straightforward. It's a long time since I read the original story but Dick always included elements questioning the nature of reality, whereas I felt that if this was represented in the film, it was too subtle for me. I'm really pleased I watched it though. Next: Blade Runner 2049! (handily available on Prime right now)

Blade Runner 2049 (2017)

Well, I said that Blade Runner doesn't look dated, and it doesn't - but then again, it clearly isn't as modern as this. The pacing, the cinematography, the soundtrack (and probably a dozen other tiny things that I would be able to identify if I were more a student of cinema) are all clearly more up-to-date. The story is more complex, which is nice, but much less plausible, which is annoying. And it's too long - the same story could have been told in 20% less time, or you could have had slightly fewer twists, turns and set pieces - the latter, in particular, is one of the big differences between this and the original, I think. But it was a very enjoyable watch anyway.

Now You See Me (2013)

Flashy, entertaining but empty heist movie. It meets most of the criteria laid out by Mark Kermode in his Secrets of Cinema in most respects - the overly-complex plot, too many people etc - but missed on one crucial factor, to my mind: it doesn't explain how it's done. As such, the film is free to metaphorically wave its hands and say, "magic" without having to worry about plausibility. The twist at the end was cute but, again, ridiculously implausible. And of course the love interest has fallen in love with the master criminal at the end and so doesn't reveal his secret.

Love at First Sight (2023)

I'm trying to remember if there's a book I've preferred over the film, if I saw the film first, or vice versa. I can't think of any - presumably because if it captures your attention enough the first time round, whichever medium that is, that's what stays with you. And so it is with this. I read the book about a week ago and was a bit disappointed: where is the magic and emotion so present here in the film? So I rewatched this and was charmed all over again. Just a lovely, sweet, romance, if that's your thing. (Again, if this were available on DVD, I'd buy it but, being a Netflix production, presumably it will be quite a few years before that happens, if at all.)

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)

I'm no Marvel geek (understatement) so how much this plays into the deep lore of Spider-Man, I have no idea. But the whole idea of slightly different Spider-people across different universes is great fun and the visuals are really impressive. Watched as part of a double-bill with Z!